Member-only story
Let’s be honest, I take up a hell of a lot of space. I always have and I likely always will. I know what you’re thinking, and I can tell you right now, the picture you have in your mind of me is completely wrong. I’m not a big girl. I don’t occupy a great deal of space in that sense. In fact, I’m quite small by society’s standards. That doesn’t stop me from commanding and demanding my space.
Space has been an issue for me for as long as I can remember. I seemed to need more than my share. By the time I was 3 or 4, I had established a personal bubble that was impenetrable by all but a chosen few. I didn’t (and still don’t) care for random hugs, hand-holding or any of that. I even positioned my desk to be as far away from my fellow students as I could possibly be. Being too close to someone makes me feel squeezed, threatened as if my oxygen is being stolen from me in some way.
It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with gymnastics, particularly the floor exercises. It was just me, flying through space, alone. When I was on that floor, I commanded a whole lot of space, 40 by 40 feet, to be exact.
Over the years, my need to maintain my personal space continued in a style reminiscent of…
