They say that the first step to getting over your problem is admitting you have one. Some problems probably can’t be solved this way, but they’re worth a little effort, I suppose. So, here goes nothing:

I’m short.

Nicer people have called me “petite” or “diminutive,” but it all amounts to the same thing. I’m five-foot-zero-and-a-half, though the half inch does little to boost my self-esteem. I haven’t grown a centimeter since the summer before seventh grade while my peers continue to shoot up like cornstalks, leaving me standing below and waving goodbye.

Some people might think that I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. To be honest, being short is a hard job. The “shorties,” as I like to call them, have it rough. We’re the kind of people who scowl at you when you say you “haven’t done that since you were yea high” because we are yea high. Or we are the kind of kids who get angry when you suggest that we find someone to look up to. Hello, we have to look up to everyone. The more difficult task would be finding someone to look down to.

No one who has always been tall can empathize with us shorties. The view from above is so different from our view. Wearing heels only gives you a tiny taste of that, sort of like a small drop of water in a desert.

You see, everything seems strange in the Land of Up There, a mythical place created by the shorties. In Up There, no one ever picks on you because you can fit into your locker or because they’re taller than you when they’re sitting down. The air is so much cleaner in Up There, it’s like walking on Cloud Nine. So really, to the shorties, their greatest aspiration is to become a resident of Up There. After all, the citizens of Up There don’t have to crick their necks trying to look into the faces of their friends, right?

Being a shorty also means that you have a whole cartload of embarrassing stories that all tie back to being short. When I go shopping, I have to bring a tall friend with me to help get clothes from the racks and search for a store in which the pants don’t swallow my feet and my hands appear on the other end of the sleeve. Shorties typically end up in the back row, craning their necks around the students in front of them. They have to be Photoshop-ed in pictures because all you can see of them standing next to everyone is their head. We shorties have to stand on stools to reach the medicine cabinet and cannot tell you the eye color of our best friends because our necks don’t tilt back that far. Our feet can’t touch the floor when we sit at our desks unless we slouch to the point that half of our faces are beneath the tabletop.

The shorties of the world don’t grow up; they mature and age. They stay the exact same height forever. Studies have shown that shorties aren’t taken seriously by their tall co-workers and most likely even earn $800 less per inch less than their taller workmates. In the event that a job is being considered between two people, 72 percent of the time, the tall person will get it. Shorties have to sit on phonebooks to drive even small cars and can therefore never hope to secure a job in the area of delivery systems or trucking. They sometimes have a hard time with dating and relationships because of their height. In a poll done online by shortsupport.org, 44 percent of 217 people voted that the area in which their shortness gives them the most problems is romantic relationships.

Sometimes, I wonder what the shorties must have done to anger the God of the Tall. What could we possibly have done to make our siblings enormous to the point that they’re towering over us by about two inches … at age 10? What sort of misdeed could we have committed to stunt us so that we can’t even touch the top of the doorframe if we jump? Whatever it was, it must have been huge, and now we’re getting our poetic justice.

After hearing all of these toils and tribulations, you must think shorties lead this terrible hard-knock life, and believe me, you’re probably right. Coming to Lincoln has made me realize how truly short I am. But it’s also clued me in to the other shorties who’ve emerged from the woodwork. Together, we’re the Students Making A Lack Livable, or S.M.A.L.L.

I understand now that being a shorty is not something I can cure with some 12-step program. Being a shorty is who I am, who many people across the globe are. So until I do manage to reach my palace of the tall in Up There, I’ve decided to accept my position as a shorty in our commemorative club, complete with oath and all:

Be strong.

Be proud.

Be short.