“They’re too big!”

My daughter smacks her feet on the floor to show me exactly how big and floppy her new shoes are.

“They’re too big?” I say, doing that mom-thing where you listen and echo your child’s observations without contradicting them. Neither confirm nor deny.

We are on our way out the door, five minutes late as usual. I can make up for it if we hit the traffic lights just right. But five minutes can expand into fifteen if she senses cajoling. I try anyway. “You are growing so fast,” I say. “I bet these’ll fit you real soon.”

She knocks her foot back-and-forth inside the shoe. “It doesn’t feel good,” she says. Her voice stretches into a whine that threatens to then morph into a wail. I’m on fragile ground. I press my thumb into the toe of the shoe to see how big they really are. Just like my mom did when I was a kid. The rule of new kid shoes is: leave a little room to grow. For growing humans, a perfect fit won’t last long.

I once saw this video on Instagram of a hermit crab who had made a home from a plastic spray bottle cap. Someone came along and placed her in a bucket with five empty shells and I watched as the crab released herself from the plastic home and placed her slimy gray abdomen into the shell she liked best.

When hermit crabs size up, do they leave room to grow? Or do they always choose the perfect fit, like a glove?

When I was in second grade, my mom made me a pair of knickerbockers. They were forest green corduroy and had suspenders sewn into them. One morning my mom was helping me choose clothes for school and convinced me to wear them. I complained that they didn’t fit anymore. The fabric clamped around my knees when I bent down without any give for climbing or jumping or squatting. “Just one more time,” she pleaded, trying to get another wear out of them. Maybe to make the hours she spent hunched over a sewing machine worth it. “One last time and then we can pack them away,” she promised. I gave in.

During lunch, I dropped the crust of my bologna sandwich under the outdoor table where I ate with all the other students. A classmate who was assigned as lunch monitor pointed it out and told me I couldn’t go play until I picked it up.

Her name was Denny and she was bossy, which is probably why she was so good at her job. I don’t do well when people tell me what to do. So, I refused. But the real reason underneath it all was this: I was afraid if I bent down to pick up the crust, I’d split the seam of my knickerbockers. It seemed entirely plausible. I’d seen it happen in cartoons.

At my refusal, Denny snatched my lunch box and held it hostage. “Pick it up and you can have your lunch box back.” She crossed her arms over my purple Lisa Frank lunch box, holding it tight to her chest. Obviously, there was only one thing left to do. I swiped the lunch box from her arms. In doing so, I snagged my fingernail on her inner lip. Before I could see the damage, I stomped off to the playground without looking back. Had I looked back, I would have seen Denny spitting out gobs of blood. At least, that’s how the principal described it when she called me to her office.

A bad fit can really get you into trouble. Which is maybe a truth my daughter knows. Shoes too big can make you trip. Shoes too small can make you not want to run.

I can’t stop thinking about the hermit crab. What if a better fit doesn’t come along? How long can one stay in a shell that’s too small? It takes colossal trust to leave behind something that once fit so well and go naked into the world. Seeking, scuttling. For a hermit crab it would mean certain death. But that hermit crab, she would rather move into a plastic cap than stay in a shell that didn’t fit. It was, in the moment she made her decision, a matter of survival.

I don’t remember the precise moment I realized my marriage wasn’t a good fit. I think outgrowing something is just like that. A pinch here turned into bickering. Snug seams became frustration. Squeezed in, I gave in, apologized for things I wasn’t sorry for, and smoothed situations over because maybe I just didn’t want to admit I’d outgrown a thing I had loved. It’s entirely possible that the thing I had loved never really fit to begin with. I had to admit to myself, and then to my husband, that I am queer.

I don’t like to be told what to do. But if I know what is expected of me, I will often rise to the occasion. Some call this being a people pleaser. I remember asking my mother, “What would you say if I told you I was gay?” I was fifteen at the time. We were driving up Lincoln Avenue on our way home from grocery shopping or running errands or dropping off my sister.

“Well, I’d be a little disappointed,” she said. “I’d be sad that I wouldn’t be able to be a grandma. I’ve always wanted to be a grandma. But I’d be okay.”

And yet. Growing into myself has been expansion followed by contraction. Because underneath it all, I’ve always been afraid of splitting the seams. But the thing that always comes after contraction is, again, expansion. It’s in our nature. Wild spreading, birthing, growing, gasping, taking up space expansion.

I recently left my marriage, ditched my shell for a better fit, something that feels right. It’s like I’ve been wearing three-inch heels this whole time and they were freaking uncomfortable, but I kept on wearing them until they hurt so much I just couldn’t take another step. I just couldn’t live another day squeezed into a marriage that didn’t fit.

Someone told me my feet would grow after carrying and birthing a child. I didn’t believe them. How could it be true? That makes no sense, I thought. Yet, I did grow in so many ways. Not a single pair of pre-pregnancy shoes fits any longer. Now here I am, breaking-in this new life, which hardly needs breaking- in. Queerness is butter soft Italian leather. It’s all I ever want to wear again.

In all honesty, being queer isn’t the only reason I’m getting a divorce. Sometimes I wonder, if my marriage had been a good one, would I have ever left? Could I have stayed and left my sexual orientation unlived? I dreamed of divorce many times, then awoke to continue on as things were. Then the scales tipped. The pain of staying outweighed the risk of leaving. I was dying on the inside. And I didn’t know until I couldn’t stay one more day. It was a matter of my own survival.

With my thumb pressed into the toe of my daughter’s new shoes, I see that they are perhaps a little too big. I get her disdain. Today, she is in between sizes. “It’s okay, Mi’ja,” I tell her. “When your feet are ready, you’ll know.” I slip off the new shoes and hand her a pair of shoes so worn, her socks peek through a hole in the tip. She smiles with the sweet comfort of the familiar. And I smile too, because with her old soles and my new ones, we can be on our way.

Jazmine Becerra Green is Chicanx writer and poet. Her work has been published in the Boston Globe, Bust.com, and Jewish Journal among others. Jazmine is a teaching artist for Get Lit–Words Ignite, where she guides young people in the art of spoken word poetry. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and lives in Los Angeles with her wildlings. Jazmine is working on a hybrid memoir about motherhood told through personal essays and poetry. You can find more of her work at www.jazminebecerragreen.com. Pronouns: she/her.