Growth and change are two of the most defining aspects of life. Whether it’s a crab shedding its exoskeleton to make room for new growth or a human transitioning from one relationship to another, we all experience these shifts in our lives. 

Female crab shells litter Fort Monroe Beach’s shores.  Alongside them are skeletons no one sees but me, phantom beach companions and even a charming proposal.

I aim to keep tonight’s blog short.  I can hear the Crawford girls laughing inside the kitchen, Mary Beth directing her eldest Josie to set the table for taco night as her youngest Ginny no doubt arranges blue hydrangeas to complete the atmosphere. 

Two-Hour Tuesdays for me, blogging about life.  Tuesday Taco night for them, doing life. 

We just got home from the beach, settling into our routines, but the banter and buzz calls me indoors, tempting me to drop writing night altogether and dive into their daily grind.  But I’m still there at Fort Monroe, in our happy place. 

The wind whipped our hair, the four of us, as we walked the boardwalk, like we’ve done so many times before.   Memories echoed from sand. 

Last week while collecting sea shells, my friend Rob had to explain to me that I wasn’t seeing dead crabs, but rather, the outer shell expelled while molting.  The smaller the creature, the faster it sheds and hardens again for the world.  Tiny humans need new clothes every few months, just a visual representation of the developmental depth beneath the skin. 

I think we’re all more patient with children’s growing pains.  Their growth is as visible on the outside as the inside, reaching milestones like walking, talking, and losing their first teeth.  Perhaps that’s why I was more resilient as a child.  Growing pains were not only more naturally a part of life, but the world was so patient while we figured out how to be people. 

My nearly nine-year-old twin nieces grow physically in inches, but miles in personality over the course of a single schoolyear.  Tessa’s spacers have literally shifted her teeth in her mouth to prepare for her adult smile.  The process long and painful, we’re patient with her growing pains.  We see the external progress and encourage her.

Her sister Kat bounces from one crafty hobby to the next, currently a dollhouse she created from scratch out of paper.  Like me, she can’t stand to sit still without creating something with her two hands.  And like me, the end of the schoolyear brings an emotional crash, with the bittersweet and necessary end suddenly painful, despite the beginnings next year holds. 

Seasons change.  Our bodies change.  Kat and Tessa wear a lot of Ginny and Josie’s old clothing.  Those hand-me-downs are still coming as Mary Beth’s teenagers continue to develop markedly.  While my nephew J.J.’s latest growth spurt has him nearly passing me up, his adolescent perspective challenges and intrigues me. 

In middle school, they’re becoming men and women.  We expect their hormones to change, hips and biceps to pop out, chipmunk grins to become knockout smiles.  We expect their ups and downs.  We see the external progress and encourage them to fight the good fight, put on a growth mindset, and change in a moment. 

The larger the crab, the longer it takes to shed its exoskeleton.  They hide out for days, vulnerable and weak.  As long as it takes to shed the old shell is as long it takes to harden the inner shell.  Mary Beth and I both know that far too well.  When we’re grown ups though, the world is a little less patient with our growing pains. 

Do you believe that people can change?  I believe that, like Principal Adams taught our students all year at alternative school, that the day we stop learning is the day that we die.  And as long as we’re still learning, we’re still capable of real change.  It might not be so obvious on the outside, but most of the adults that I brush up against on a daily basis are either molting, preparing to, or coming out of hiding. 

The first time Mary Beth and I walked at Fort Monroe Beach, she couldn’t have known that in the eight years to come, she and her girls would navigate through a tricky divorce, she’d fall in and love and get remarried, and buy the house with the patio I’m typing on tonight.

She’s got a strong shell now, but I remember when we were both trying to shed the skin we’d outgrown.  When I go to that beach, I can sometimes still picture my ex-fiancé down on one knee in the sand in my happy place or riding in the horse-drawn carriage with my nieces and nephew, but that was six years ago now.  I didn’t just not get married.  I had already quit my job and had to start again in other ways.  There are also beach companions I no longer have as friends.

We’re all still changing in some ways. At times, my wardrobe is an external reflection of inner change.  For example, I hit up my favorite Goodwill last week to snag a few dresses for my writing wardrobe.  Ginny and Josie love when I upgrade my wardrobe because I fill their closets with cute stuff that magically looks even better on them than it did on me last year.

Sometimes they look like little teachers, sometimes sporty, sometimes classy, but always, they make outgrowing my previous self something I look forward to doing.  Ginny wore a dress of mine for her award ceremony last week, and a former student recognized it as mine.  When Josie sends me our daily Snap photos, more often than not, she’s wearing a shirt I handed down. 

And it makes me smile, every time.  I don’t have kids of my own (yet?), but I’m still passing things down.  Castoff clothing and lessons learned alike, my brother’s kids and Mary Beth’s girls grow and change.  I do, along with them.  It might not be as obvious as spacers and inches, but I’m not the same woman who was proposed to on that beach. 

I think grown-ups spend a lot more time hiding out while metamorphosis happens. Relationships end.  People die and move away.  We lose jobs.  We lose friends.  We get married and have children… or we don’t. We might stick with the same hobby lifelong or find a new one every year.  When we want to lose twenty pounds, hiding out only makes it more difficult, but adults hermitize in change too often. 

The four of us girls, walking the beach, sitting on the shore, side by side.  Different shades and shapes, but somehow, we all swap the same clothes in different seasons.  Each one’s uniqueness is only highlighted by contrasting strengths.  It’s a beautiful tapestry. 

We change constantly… what doesn’t change is that we face our growing pains together, and I think these girls show a little more grace to grown-ups working growth mindsets.  Someday, they’ll pass those clothes on to Tessa and Kat, and they’ll outgrow them, too.  It’s an expected part of life.

I hear it all too often that people can’t change.  It might be harder to teach an old dog new tricks, but it’s not impossible.  Like large crabs, it takes time and leaves you vulnerable.  They can’t ask for protection, but you can.  Let people around you in on the growing pains; you might be surprised at the safety net. 

You don’t have to be content to not better tomorrow.  You don’t need to be afraid to outgrow our skin.  Pain, change, and time.  We’ve been doing it since infancy.