Finding myself in my sneakers

steph scott

When I look at photos from my childhood, I don’t remember being happy. But there’s one I keep returning to. One I look at with fondness. One that makes me smile. In fact, I recently pulled it from the album and hung it above my computer as a reminder that the kid in that photo is thrilled. I write for that kid. In the photo, I’m riding my bike—one foot on the handlebars, the other on the frame—a trick I’d spent weeks trying to master. But it’s not the bike trick that makes me smile; it’s my shoes—pink, high-top, knock-off Converse. My mom gave them to me for my birthday, and except for the color, I loved them. In fact, they quickly became my most prized possession.

The color was a compromise: my mom let me wear “boyish” shoes, but they had to be a “girl” color, lest anyone think I was actually a boy. So, I worked with what I had; what I was allowed. If I was only permitted to have pink Chucks, fine. But I’d make them mine, make them match me. And to do that, I had to break them.

I took to dragging the toes of my shoes against the asphalt to scuff them up while riding my bike. I sat in my room at night, smacking them on the floor and bending the tops back and forth until the edges frayed. I’d sit in the empty lot down the street and scrape them against the ground and grind gravel into the sides, trying to scrub the pink away.

It wasn’t an act of destruction, beating up these shoes I loved. It was liberation. With every drag in the dirt, every scuff of the cheap rubber sole, I peeled away a little bit of femininity. With every scrape, I revealed a hint of the real kid beneath.

Of course, I didn’t understand all this at the age of ten. I wasn’t making a conscious decision to declare my gender nonconformity. I was just trying to find a way to feel like myself—the one buried deep inside the terrified kid whose insides coiled like a spring my feet were stuffed into stiff heels. The kid who choked on the oppressive fumes of unwanted home perms my mom gave me to ensure I “looked like a girl.” The kid who cried every Sunday morning when shoved into a church dress, then sat straight-backed in the pews, trying not to suffocate.

The kid who prayed at night to stop feeling broken and wrong.

I didn’t understand then what I was; I just knew I didn’t fit. I didn’t want to be a boy; I didn’t feel like I was in the wrong body. I just hated dressing like a girl. Hated looking like a girl.

In hindsight, I realize that it was mostly fear that drove my conservative religious mother to try to banish the queerness from me. But at the time, my appearance was a constant source of conflict between us. She, in her perfect makeup and always coiffed hair, and I, a tomboy who loathed all things feminine and just wanted to wear jeans, ringer tees, and baseball caps.

But letting me pick my shoes was a compromise she was willing to make. The one way I was allowed autonomy and expression, and except for formal events, I was allowed to wear what I wanted on my feet. As a result, my feet became the one part of my body where I felt like me.

Sort of.

Because limitations still remained.

I was allowed high tops but couldn’t get the blue basketball shoes I wanted; I had to get white aerobics shoes with pink stripes. I got cross-trainers, but they were purple and turquoise (this was the 80s, after all). But then something miraculous happened. Sometime in the early to mid-90s, Adidas Sambas became all the rage, and everyone was wearing them, regardless of athletic status—both boys and girls. Pretty girls, feminine girls. Girls who represented everything my mother wanted me to be. Girls who were everything I wasn’t.

I became obsessed. Not because getting a pair would mean being “in,” but because I knew if I got them, it would be the first time I wouldn’t have to compromise. I’d be able to wear “masculine” shoes, and nobody would bat an eye. Especially my mother. I could be myself—no masks, at least on my feet.

When I got the Sambas for Christmas, I cried. It wasn’t the first time I’d shed tears over clothes, but this was maybe the first time I wasn’t crying out of embarrassment or frustration by being pushed into an outfit that betrayed my personhood. This time, I was crying in relief. Because my parents gifting me those sneakers was like an acknowledgment of me—the real me buried inside. Those sneakers were the beginning of my rebirth, and while my family opened their other gifts, I sat on the couch, curled up in my pajamas, holding those black shoes with three stripes in my lap. I held them to my nose and inhaled the warm scent of new leather. Slowly stroked the suede strip over the toe box. Traced my finger over the ridges and circles on the gum rubber sole. I laced and unlaced them as I debated how to wear them—tongue flipped down or up.

Unlike with those pink Chucks so many years before, my Sambas were treated with reverence. I kept them high out of reach of my siblings and animals, lest they be scuffed or dirtied. I was practically vibrating when I finally put them on to wear to school, and as I tied my laces, I felt a piece of myself relax. Not all of me, but a piece. I carefully cuffed my jeans, so they sat just right on top of those three white stripes and stared down, a smile stretching across my face. Because when I looked down, I saw a glimmer of the person inside. Small, hidden deep inside—the person I wished I could show the world was starting to emerge.

By the time I grew out of my Sambas, I had a part-time job and could get myself a new pair. From that point on, I no longer had to compromise with my shoes. And while I also tended to dress more masculine as I grew older, I only took it so far, unwilling or unready to deal with questions. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I had the answers, anyway.

But as my sneaker collection grew, so did my freedom to express my true self. The self that identifies as female but doesn’t feel comfortable looking it. The self that knew I didn’t fit cis-gendered societal norms but also knew I wasn’t trans. I was somewhere in the middle of a binary I didn’t understand or have the vocabulary to express.

It seems like such a silly thing—finding oneself in their shoes. But every time I laced up my sneakers, I felt that hidden, fear-laden part in my chest open a little more, allowing me to breathe a little deeper. Every time I slipped on a pair of sneakers, it was like I was being reborn.

While there were times I still wore feminine clothes as I hadn’t quite managed to buck conventions entirely, my shoes remained the one constant where I was myself. I even wore sneakers on my wedding day—white Adidas with baby blue stripes—my something new and blue. My mom picked my dress, and because she was paying, I didn’t want to fight when she picked something I didn’t like. Nor did I understand there were other options to fight about. I loved getting married, but I hated wearing that dress, and more importantly, I hated that people were looking at me in that dress. I rocked back and forth for the entirety of the ceremony—not because I was nervous about getting married, but because an entire church full of people was staring at me as I stood up front, draped in white silk and lace.

I sometimes wonder what it would have felt like to wear what I felt comfortable in instead of acquiescing to the norm and my mother’s expectations. But at the time, unaware and perhaps unwilling to resist, wearing soccer shoes under my wedding dress felt like a coup. I let them put me in skirts, and a bustle, and a veil that sprouted off the top of my head like an organza fountain. I tried to keep the tears inside as they painted my lips deep red and extended my lashes with dark mascara. My hair was swept up and pinned on my head with a thin, floral circlet, and my pale shoulders and chest splotched red from embarrassment at my decolletage on full display, thanks to a strapless bodice I didn’t want.

But underneath a nest of tulle and cotton petticoats, my feet stood cocooned inside soft leather on gum rubber soles. So, I wiggled my toes in my cushioned cotton socks and centered myself, lifting my smiling eyes to my spouse. Despite what I looked like, I was still marrying the person I loved. And I was doing it in sneakers. Hidden beneath a costume of femininity and tradition, I was still there. I was still me. So, every time someone complimented me about how pretty I looked in a dress, I’d thank them, then lift my skirts and grin. “But look at my shoes!” I’d say with glee.

It took me another decade and a half to come out as queer—years after my mother passed away. Now that I’m in my 40s, I have a better understanding of who and what I am. As I embrace more of my true identity and match my outward appearance to who I am inside, I breathe easier. When I look up at the picture of that ten-year-old girl riding her bike in pink high-top Chucks, I smile. I’d love to show her the neckties in my drawer and the short fade haircut I wear. But mostly, I’d love to show her that shelf full of sneakers in my closet. I think she’d be thrilled.

about the author

Steph Scott (she/her) is a queer writer and former middle and high school English teacher. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing Young Adult Literature and believes all stories should have an element of hope, no matter how dark. Her novel Come Back Alive was recently longlisted for the Voyage Literary "Love & War" contest, and her poem, “Bacon,” is published on SadGirlsClub.org. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her spouse, their teenager, and two dogs too big for their house. She is represented by Lizz Nagle at Victress Literary and can be found at skscottwriter.com and on Twitter and Instagram as @skscottwriter.