Long is pretty short

My last name is Long, not long in the sense that it has a lot of letters but rather that the word long itself is my last name. Its funny that long, which implies great length, is in actuality a word that is quite short in length.

Because I am super tall I don't think there is another word that would fit me quite as well unless maybe if my last name was tall. I remember when I was in the 6th grade my teacher used to poke fun of me and call me Natasha Short and interestingly enough it was the first time I realized that my last name Long fit me quite well.

 My looooong self

Because there are 39 definitions of the word long from Dictionary.com I'll just choose a couple that eerily relate directly to me.

long

–adjective

1.
having considerable linear extent in space: a long distance; a long handle.
(I have already spoken about this definition in relation to my long body)
2.
forward-looking or considering all aspects; broad: to take a long view of life.
(I tend to be always looking to the future, I am a person that rarely just lives in the moment)
3. experienced as passing slowly, because of the difficulty, tedium, or unpleasantness involved: long years of study.
(long years of study-this is exactly how I feel about my seemingly never ending college experience)

I've always had a love-hate relationship with definition 1, my height.  Growing up I was either admired for my height or poked fun at, though I definitely feel the latter happened more frequently. People would call me names like giant or tree and I can't even begin to count the number of times people asked me if I played basketball. I always wanted to say yes I'm tall and no I do not play basketball; you're short does that mean you play mini golf.

Because I'm tall I feel it is impossible to blend in, and sometimes blending in would be nice.  I'm not a person that likes to be the center of attention so when I'm walking through stores and people are staring at me I feel extremely uncomfortable.  HOWEVER...sometimes standing out is a pretty nice thing.  At the Drake concert being tall definitely worked to my advantage.  I don't like to think I was only noticed because of my height but I'm not gonna lie I know it contributed to the reason I drew his attention.