VOICES
HEIGHT AS A HAVEN By Anonymous Content Warning: Sexual Assault and Bulimia I have a complicated relationship with height. Growing up, my father’s side of the family towered over me. My grandfather and grandmother topped out at 6-foot-4 and 6-foot respectively. They passed their genes onto my father, who continuously perplexed my classmates. One day, in kindergarten, I remember my classmate Peter’s widened eyes and slacked jaw as he watched my father enter the building. “Wow! Your dad is so tall.” He looked at me in awe. “He’s 6-foot-3,” I replied, somewhat in wonder myself. He did not seem that tall to me, but Peter was the tallest kid in my class. And if the tallest kid in my class thought my dad was tall, he must have been a borderline giant. I have always associated tallness with safety. After a scary dream, my dad would wrap his long arms around me and bury me in his chest. After our yearly apple picking trip, while making applesauce from scratch, my grandma could gracefully reach around behind me to grab the cinnamon. Afterward, while the applesauce cooled, I would steal my grandpa’s 8 TUFTS OBSERVER FEBRUARY 14, 2022
chair and drown within its cushions—only for him to give a disapproving nod and sit in the smaller chair next to me. I never came close to my family’s height, somewhat due to a cruel trick of genes and a separate health issue. Although, in hindsight, maybe that was for the best. The man who assaulted me made even my own family feel small. Due to Tufts’ lack of extraordinarily tall men, I will not share his actual height, but envision him taller than 6-foot-5. Like many men who defy the laws of nature, his height seemed entwined with his personality. Initially, it drew me to him and reminded me of home. His hugs grounded me when everything felt foreign freshman year, and tipping my chin up to make eye contact felt familiar. However, as our relationship progressed, he could not settle for just friendship. Come sophomore year, his demeanor changed. His desire for more became unavoidable and he only wanted to see me after I had something to drink. Desperate to salvage what I failed to realize as an already failed relationship, I obliged. But I
still tried to maintain some semblance of a boundary. I told him “No.” I told him to leave, that I wanted to go to sleep. Instead, he waited. He watched me get ready for bed and then crawled into the space between me and the wall. Then he started to undress. His presence, his height, smothered me. For what felt like an eternity—while simultaneously an instant—my life plummeted into darkness. My entire body powered down, and I felt frozen while my brain just clicked off. So much for the fight, in flight or fight. I cried myself to sleep for weeks. Overwhelmed by my own pain, my disordered eating habits, which I had kept a precarious lid on for most of my childhood, began to boil over. I hyper-fixated my newfound disgust for my body on my outward appearance and, less than two weeks later, plunged into the dark hole of bulimia. Sure, I wanted to become skinnier, but, on a more twisted level, I just wanted to hurt myself. Wasn’t I to blame for what happened to me? Did I lead him on? Technically, we kissed before I said no. I was
