When I was a little girl, more decades ago than I care to count, I was skinny as a string bean. If I were a child in school today they'd probably worry I was Anorexic. But I ate like a field-hand, as my mother would say. I loved all sorts of foods, exotic and otherwise, salads, tempura shrimp, desserts, pizza, anything.
The boys teased me relentlessly, one calling me Bird Legs every time he saw me on the recess yard. (maybe he had a crush on me...?) Back then girls had to wear dresses to school, so my stick legs were always on display. I grew up in California, where fifty degrees meant winter, so no hiding my limbs under thick tights and tons of sweaters.
Then if that wasn't enough, at age twelve I had a huge growth spurt. Not out, as I wished for, but up. Other girl's were developing into shapely teens, I was becoming a narrow tower. "How's the weather up there?" I'd hear.
My best friend's mother, who stood maybe four-foot ten said I needed to stop growing and she was going to have my mother tie a brick to my head. (if only that worked)
When I entered high school I was five-foot-nine, (3/4 inches was yet to add itself on), and still skinny as a needle. I longed to be 'willowy' but 'gangly' applied. I wasn't the tallest girl in school, but all the others had meat on their bones. Where were my hips and other womanly shapes? I resembled my dad who was six-foot-four. Two bricks please! I still gobbled down plenty of food, but to no avail.
I planned to join the navy at nineteen, I loved to travel, but I didn't weigh enough for their height/weight ratio. For weeks I had to stuff myself and barely slid by.
I met my husband when I was stationed in Greece, and while most of my friends went through unhappy marriages and divorces--and ours wasn't always a piece of cake (yum, did anyone say cake?)--we've been together for over forty years, and that's one thing I wouldn't change.
We have two sons and two beautiful granddaughters.
I came to terms with my gangly body and in my mature years accept things far better than I used to. I've shrunk a half inch, and I finally got the fat I wanted. Unfortunately, it's only around my middle.
My experiences made me stronger and resilient. I rarely back down (but I do wish I could go back in time and have a long "talk" with Robbie-who labeled me Bird Legs).
I also love writing, starting in kindergarten. My pens and pencils never cared how boney I was. Well, those implements are long and skinny, too. The way I prefer historicals, I should be using a quill pen.
My latest novel, On a Stormy Primeval Shore, part of the Canadian Historical Brides Series, is available for pre-order, (link below) release date: January 1, 2018.
Blurb: In 1784, Amelia
sails to New Brunswick, a land overrun by Loyalists escaping the American
Revolution, to marry a soldier whom she rejects. Acadian Gilbert fights to
preserve his heritage and property—will they find love when events seek to
destroy them?
Pre-order HERE
