TINY ME

“You’re so tiny!”

I have heard those words in different forms and paraphrases all my life. As a kid, I used to protest vehemently, telling whoever said them I was not that little and that (s)he was just a few inches taller than me. I remember a classmate in JSS3 (Junior Secondary School Three), she would look at me, mischief lacing her eyes and would exclaim, “Ayo, you should be in Primary Two” followed with a peal of naughty laughter. I would flick my fingers and forbid it. Ayobola!

This informed why when I went for my medicals in my pre-degree days and I stepped on the balance the doctor was surprised. He said, “Is this your weight?! You should be eating ten times a day!”

A lot of times I have had to trim clothes to my size (to be fair, I still get my size in the market, just that I will have to walk around a lot to get it) and I would always pout and ask why some designers do not consider people like me when they are designing their products. Thank God for my younger sister who learnt to sew, she had made a lot of fitting wears for me. I think that’s actually the best for me, having someone to design my wears for me. I still shop for clothes and every time I see a wee size that I love, I grab it with immediate alacrity.

And I don’t think my size is because I don’t eat. I will not say I eat a lot, but my appetites are better now compared to the way they were earlier this year and a few years back.  I used to eat a lot on campus and it never showed. My friend, Tope, would tease me and ask if the food was going to my head. Someone even suggested deworming. (I do not regularly deworm. The last time I actively dewormed was before mom died. But I do not have worms, I know.) So, I heeded the advice and used the drugs, well, there were no worms. I guess that’s just me, delicate and dainty.

When I was at the NYSC orientation camp, people would ask if the hairstyle I had on was all my hair—I had single twists on. I would reply yes and they would say, “It’s what you should use to add weight that your hair is using.”

However, I have noticed a trend in my life. I have always found myself doing/handling things ‘bigger’ and ‘stronger’ than me. I studied geology, a course ‘stronger’ than my frame. I was graphics coordinator in my fellowship back on campus. Being a graphics coordinator in my fellowship was not beans, it was very tasking and considering the fact that I am small, it appeared ‘bigger’ than me. As a Jesus Corper, I was State Chief Usher/Landlady. That was another tasking assignment. And eventually I became a rig worker. It is quite unusual to find a person of my size on the rig. Some guys had asked me before if my mama and papa knew if I was working on the rig. Poor guys, my size fooled them. There was a time on a rig when the company man remarked on seeing me and another female colleague that he wasn’t running a kindergarten on the rig (that was my fault though).
 
Sometimes last year at training, I was chatting with my colleagues and I mentioned something about when I was small. One of them looked at me, amused, and said, “You’re still small!” =D . Two hitches away while at the heliport, I already had my weight taken, but I was called back again after a while to confirm my weight which was 90 pounds then. And this last hitch, I was weighing 92. The woman that took my weight lowered her voice in a whisper and told me she weighed 92 pounds twenty years ago when she got married. She was trying to get back to that size, she said, as she had lost about 90 pounds (if I remember correctly).

But this size was instrumental in getting me my job. I went to gatecrash with some other brethren from the NCCF family house and it was my size that made the security guard who allowed me in to my company base to write the test notice me. Sometimes last year though, I was supposed to work in Canada for six months on a short term assignment, but the assignment ended up being a vacation of one month and five days. Why? Because in Canada, they fly on choppers with flight suits and not life jackets, but there was no flight jacket small enough for me and the process of getting a customized one would take more than six months. Anyway, I never saw my weight/size as a disadvantage still, even though it wasn’t easy on me at that time. I will always know that my size is not a disadvantage and that God uses the weak things of this world to shame the strong.

I am adding little by little, but I must not over-add. I am not tall, so I do not want to become a bottle. I have a target weight which I told God I don’t want to exceed, except if I get to that point and I realize I could do with a few more pounds. I still want to be able to jump and skip around, I love doing those.  I am Ayobami Temitope with a high metabolism rate and I love being me. I am beautiful, delicately and intricately made by the Greatest Artist.

“For You created my inmost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.” Psalm 139:13-15