My heart dropped today as I walked through the shopping centre (albeit in my own small radius).

Why? Look at the posting date.

Yep, restricted growth people have probably guessed it – it’s the school holidays. And yep, it was stares-galore from the kids, young kids, teenagers and today even the parents.

I’d like to think it was because of my fabulously good looks and my radiant aura (cough), but I know the reality and it isn’t because I’m Britney Spears long-lost sister.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have this sixth sense of knowing when someone is staring; that I could go out in public and not to get the second look. But alas, as some people are afflicted with a physical or mental difference – this is my burden to bear.

It got me thinking though, are there particular disabilities that generate more stares than others? Would people be so inclined to stare if I was in a wheelchair? If I had only one arm or leg? If I was blind? Deaf?

My gut instinct is to think that, whilst there are some genuinely rude scrotes out there, it is more to do with curiosity. That they have never come across someone who is small and it challenges their perceptions and attitudes – especially when we are seen in everyday situations, doing everyday things (shopping, driving, working, socialising).

Now I know I’m getting into some deep stuff here in terms of the non-expectations of disabled people by non-disabled people, but I’m trying not to go down the ‘pity-me’ route. I’d like to try and look at it from another perspective…

Maybe, just maybe, I’m being too sensitive about it all; that I need to accept that, at the end of the day, I am small and being so will always generate interest. That I shouldn’t equate this attention as a negative, but as a positive way to allow people to get to know me and I them.

Mmmm, I’ll try and tell myself that next time when a stranger walks up to me and goes “…f****ing hell, she’s little!”.