Just My Size

When I was a kid I used to love things that were small, especially if I could use them in some way. I loved small boxes to keep my treasures and small candies to eat. This is one of the main reasons elementary school was so fun: everything was my size. The desks and chairs not only had my name (Mary Mac because there was another Mary in the class), but they were small. I didn't have to jump or climb; I could slid into my seat just like an adult. Everything in an elementary school is made for little ones, thus I could reach and touch anything. It was delightful and I distinctly remember walking down the hallway of my school, out of Miss Vicki's 1st grade classroom toward Mrs. Perry in the library with a laminated hall pass and thinking "this is so cool. I am so grown-up." (Of course that same hallway carried many tears and pleads for my mommy, but this post is about how excited I was to be a mini-adult, not how scary it was not to have my mom around when something went terribly wrong.)

This obsession with things my size continued throughout my elementary years when I moved to the 4th grade hall and suddenly things were slightly larger than the previous hall and again fit me perfectly. I especially loved the bathrooms because the toilets were larger than the 1-3 grade bathroom (indicating that I am growing up), yet smaller than an adult bathroom and I appreciated the ease in which I could use the small toilet and wash my hands in the short sink while dreaming about great it will be when I'm in High School and very cool, just like my big brother. For some reason the freedom of washing my hands in a sink that was my size lathered up ideas about how I great my life would be once I got to high school; an existence without hall-passes and where my friends I would talk about really important things - I couldn't quite imagine what they were at the time, but I knew there would be things worth giggling about in the bathroom. Sometimes I would even catch myself laughing in the mirror to practice.

The reason I bring this up is that the bathrooms in the building I tutor are small, which is weird because this is a university not an elementary school. But every time I walk in I catch my inner child squealing with delight because it is all Just My Size.