I spotted her glittering in the water beside my bare toes and jumped back. (I’ve been pinched by a crab before.) But this one had no claws, no legs, no anything. Just the top shell, drifting with the tide. That shell had a name. I used to know it.

Carapace!

(Honestly, brain! You spent two hours yesterday trying to think of the word turnip, and now carapace dances in?)

I sent Mr. Google a photo. He recognized it right away: Arenaeus cribrarius, a speckled swimming crab. Its carapace was stunning, covered in golden bubbles like the fizz of a cream soda, with a fringe of hair and teeth at the mouth side and a slender bone rim at the back. Fashion industry, take note. Triple its size, add a back and a handle, and I’d carry that thing as a purse!

I asked Mr. Google more questions. Speckled swimming crabs shed their carapace at least eighteen times in a two-year life span. Eighteen times! If I lived to be 90 and marked each life stage as often as a crab, I’d change my carapace 810 times!

Also, get this. The word carapace may come from the Latin capa, for cape. Imagine that, a crab pulling off her soda fizz cape and tossing it to the sandy floor like a teen in a hurry. I love it!

Why couldn’t I stop thinking about this?

I finally figured it out.

I identify with that crab.

We spend our lives moving from one stage to another, from one role to another. So many job stages. So many falling-in-love stages. So many just being-a-person-in-this-world/this-country stages.

If you’re a woman, you’ve got some mighty big stages right there. Learning to love your body. Learning how your body changes as time passes. Then later, learning that your body and brain have gone wacko but that’s somehow totally normal. And then learning that your body has made it through most of the wacko period, but you still can’t come up with the word turnip. Learning that your body is vulnerable, like a crab without a carapace.

If you’re a mother, whoa. Talk about stages! You fall in love with this tiny person you grew or someone gifted to you and suddenly every person you meet used to be tiny and helpless like her. You have to let her toddle around and then walk around, her shell still soft, among other little sea creatures who are sometimes cruel. You watch her grow and find that your little crablet can be cruel too. But she can also be wise and generous and kind. You watch her wrestle with her own stages. Your heart hurts for her, but she has to learn and do it herself. She has to leave you. Isn’t that what you trained her to do?

The leaving—it’s such a painful/joyful/proud/awful stage! It’s a change for you too, figuring out a new way to mother. But you can do it and you will. The richness of it may take your breath away! It may also break you. You may envy the crab who doesn’t train them at all. Once they’re born, mom’s job is done. Good luck and see you later. But you’ll survive!

Some changes are easy and some aren’t. This last year or so has been tricky for me. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do in this new stage, this new life of mine. Where I want to put my energy. It’s not what I expected. When you’re feeling a little lost, it’s hard not to look back at other stages and romanticize them.

But I’m not complaining! I can go to the beach with people I love! I can pick up dead crab shells and ruminate! I can learn survival skills from my crab sisters and brothers! Things like:

1. Before you shed your old shell, take a long look at it. Absorb all the good things. Remember that your shell won’t come off easily, even if it sometimes feels so confining that you’re ready to rip it off. Give yourself time. Drink lots of water. Seriously. You’ll balloon up so big, it’ll burst at the seams!
2. When your carapace finally lifts like the lid of a jewelry box, you’ll still have work to do. Backing out can be hard. You’ve got to pull out your legs—all ten of them—but that’s not so tough. Try removing all the sensitive parts: the eye stalks, the antennae, the gills and the mouth parts. You may wonder, will I ever be able to see and feel and breathe and speak again?! You’ll have to push and pull these parts over and over until they give. It’s not exactly whipping off a cape.
3. Once the stage is over and done with, take care of yourself! Your new shell will harden in a few days. Rest. Remember, you’ve done HUGE WORK, deep within your tissues. It’s not easy to synthesize a new shell at the same time you’re breaking down the old one. Be gentle. If you feel like it, nibble on the old shell a little. It’s fortifying.
4. Before you paddle away into the wild ocean, take a good look at what you’re leaving behind. The parasites and barnacles you allowed, the bacteria that wasn’t good for you, all of your damaged parts. That leg the sea turtle bit off? You can grow a new one! You’ve got a fresh new start.

One last thing. In case you don’t know, crabs are particularly stupid in one important way. Crabs only get together when they want to make baby crablets. Community? Forget it.

Lucky for us, we have each other. We can talk each other through the stages. I can hold your claw and listen over coffee. You can tell me how my new carapace brings out the green in my eyes. We can share a charcuterie board of detritus and laugh about how our little crablets think they know everything and how we miss those days when they’d throw their capes on the floor. We can be a team, cheering each other on. I’ll pray for you—for that arthritis in your your chelaped—and you’ll pray for me, that I figure things out. You’ll cheer me on, and I’ll know that I will.

It’s just a life stage. I’m happy to have it.