In My Father's Shoes

I just put on my sandals and remembered something that I think you might need to be a child to understand. I can adjust these sandals, there's just a plastic strap regulated by velcro keeping them on my feet just now, and I had adjusted them to their largest size earlier today so they would slip on over my shoes because I had started to leave the house without my phone. As I slipped my feet into them now, preparing to go outside and dispose of the christmas tree, the feeling of putting my foot in the shoe and having the shoe not grab my foot in return as I moved to step backward instantly reminded me that, even as late as 9 or 10, I would often want to walk around the house in my father's shoes. I think I did that as a child for the same reason any girl would get made up into one of her mother's dresses--to try to image a corpus and future so large and adult. I then realized that it had been years and years and years since I was able to do this, which means I am an adult.