Later we were in her car, and she lifted one hand off the steering wheel to shake the bangles toward her elbow. “Ugh, these keep falling off my hand,” she said.

“Give them to me,” I said. I had another magic trick to show her. I took them and tried to fit them over my hands. They stopped on the cone of my fingers, stuck above my knuckles.

Lucy took them back. She passed them over her own hands, which didn’t even touch the sides. Her face warped in confusion, trying to figure out this reality. She really couldn’t believe I’m bigger, and she’s smaller.

Even though it can feel like I’m cut off from the experience of women who have the proportions I feel like I’m supposed to have, what’s more true is that I’m part of that universal experience: the struggle to accept one’s own body. It helps to remember we’re all facing a battle in here, whatever “here” looks like.

Sometimes you gather evidence, you get to say, “Look! It’s not fair.” When these bodies are such a privilege, I know it’s my duty to put down my dossier, put away exhibits A and B for why I’m not the way I’m supposed to be. The work is not in showing how valid my feelings about my body are, but instead in convincing myself once and for all that these feelings are just a waste of my time.

“In the time I most wanted to hide, I felt most exposed”: the social pitfalls of being a tall woman