Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Big Head



Here's the thing...I was born with a huge head. Humongous. As you can see from the picture above, I can literally barely keep it up. I realize that I 'm just a baby when this picture was taken and that my upper body muscles were still forming but from the strain on my face anyone can tell that the weight and size of my head was an issue. I can't say that this got easier and I'm afraid of what will happen when I'm older and my muscles begin to get weaker.

The size of my head made it difficult for my mother to deliver naturally so I had to be delivered via c-section or my head would have literally ripped my 4-foot 10-inch mother in half. Because I was born in a Catholic hospital, the nuns who also worked as staff and nurses had to get special permission to have a doctor from another hospital come in and perform the c-section. To further humiliate me, he accidentally cut my humongous head while doing the incision. I'm positive that even the most delicate doctor would not have been able to avoid this inevitable catastrophe.

The size of my head continued to be an issue for the rest of my life. From buying baseball caps, to ripping the neck holes on t-shirts to my short stature...that's right, I believe that I'm short because I've been weighed down by a huge head.

I realize that most of my anger is misguided and factually incorrect but I promise you that living with a head like mine year-after-year begins to wear on one and ultimately plays a role in your development and perception of the world. After a while I got used to it and it became an after-thought. The over-used Neitzchian phrase, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger", certainly applies here. My head has not killed me...but it has made my neck and shoulder muscles stronger.