The Shoes We Outgrow
August 21, 2025
Writer: Sydney Holzman
Edited by: Zoe Gellert
Hot pink Ugg boots with three bows in the back. Holographic Adidas Superstars. Sparkly studded slightly wedged heels. At one point, each held the holy title: my favorite pair of shoes. Once glued to my feet, they now exist somewhere else, washed away among a donation pile.
I mastered the art of making my feet look small: heels pressed back, toes scrunched. I crossed my fingers behind my back, hoping that the salesman would echo the number on the tag of the shoes I had worn there. My cramped toes became ambassadors of my fear, forced to negotiate with discomfort. The enormous displays of shoes captured my siblings' attention, but never mine. I didn’t want to pick a new pair; I wanted my shoes to stay the same. Alas, I was almost always faced with the disappointing news: I had grown another size and had to pick out a new pair to replace my favorites.
And that’s how it continued to go: feet grew, and my worn-down pairs were replaced by tauntingly pristine new ones. Eventually, I would surrender to my mom’s donation bags and, reluctantly, watch as the new became the old and the old became the forgotten.
My dad, harping on his years of working at a shoe store, would press his thumb against the tip of every new pair, checking for the sacred half-inch of growing room. He loved to remind us that it’s better to have extra room in front than not enough. Some advice requires maturing, too, and this half-inch philosophy has since expanded far beyond footwear.
As metrics for growth evolved from shoe sizes, the pattern persisted. Shoes matured into relationships, experiences, grades in school, and career leaps. My reluctance to step forward remained. Endings saddened me, beginnings frightened me. I now realize how much time I wasted wishing to be where I was before, standing still, afraid to wear down the soles of something new.
During my freshman year orientation, my group leader claimed that in the blink of an eye, we would be in her seat, starting our senior year and envying the freshman moving in. Yeah, right, I thought, cringing at the cliche. I was almost certain that this wouldn’t be my case. Sitting among a sea of strangers in an overwhelmingly large theatre amidst an unfamiliar city, I worried that the next few years would crawl by as slowly as those first hours had. Tulane felt like a pair of shoes that would never fit– too big, too strange, demanding a version of myself I had yet to become. I longed for the shoes I thought were perfect: the ones I graduated high school in, not yet admitting I’d outgrown those too. My orientation leader was right. I blinked a few times and suddenly a foreign campus became home. I have progressed through my time here intentionally, repeatedly reminding myself not to keep my feet in places they no longer fit.
Now as a rising senior, it is suddenly moving too fast, except hasn’t it always? This year and then the next, and then the next. It feels more dramatic, though, moving into my last year at my favorite place. The space between my toes and the tip of my Tulane shoes has shrunk from feet to centimeters, my feet gradually filling the once cavernous space. I’m grateful for the wiggle room left in front of me, yet for the first time nearing an end, I find myself looking forward rather than back, eager for what lies ahead instead of clinging to what came before.
It is human nature, or at least it was mine, to make compromises to fit into spaces no longer designed for us, enduring temporary discomfort, hoping it will eventually fade. I've come to realize though that, just like shoes that outgrow us, no amount of breaking in can make the wrong fit right. Spaces that once felt impossibly large now feel just right or even a little snug. Just as we settle in, it’s time to move on.
How liberating to realize that all along, the privilege was never in keeping the same shoes, but having new ones to grow into.