What a Crab Taught Me About Letting Go and Starting Over

I wasn’t looking for a sign. Or maybe I was and didn’t even know it.

Either way, signs have a way of finding you when you’re standing at the edge of something.

A few years ago, I was deep in one of those “dark nights of the soul” we often hear about on social media. I knew I had to leave my marriage, but the fear of losing everything—the life I built, the certainty of what came next, the version of me I had been for so long—kept me frozen.

Trapped in the knowing but unable to move.

During that time, I found myself reading a lot—at times for comfort, at times to escape my own life for a while. Which is how I ended up with The Stranger in the Lifeboat in my hands.

And a crab.

Rom wiggled his fingers and produced a tiny crab. ‘‘Did you know a crab will escape its shell thirty times before it dies?’’ He looked out to the sea. ‘‘This world can be a trying place, Inspector. Sometimes you have to shed who you were to live who you are.’’

Maybe I’d heard it before, or something similar. But in that moment, given everything I was feeling, Mitch Albom's words didn’t feel like just a metaphor—they felt like my life.

I was that little crab.

Photo by ONUR KURT on Unsplash

For so long, I had been trying to force myself back into a shell I had already outgrown. Fear is a funny thing—it convinces you that if you just hold on a little longer, contort yourself a little further, you can settle back into the familiar ache and call it home.

I had to shed the story I had built about how life should be—the ’til death do us part, the happily ever after, the idea that if I just worked hard enough, loved hard enough, sacrificed enough, I could go back.

But crabs don’t go back. They can’t shrink themselves to fit an old shell.

Neither could I.

I had done all I could and I couldn’t fix what wasn’t mine to fix.

Not to get too technical on crab biology—but crabs must molt to grow. For a time, they are vulnerable—soft-shelled, completely exposed. They have to let go of their old selves, what once felt like home, what once kept them safe, and trust that something new will form.

And that in-between state? That’s the hardest part. But refusing to shed—clinging to what no longer fits—is its own kind of death.

(Side note: The book got the number slightly wrong—crabs actually molt about twenty times in their lifespan. You’re welcome for the random but accurate fact.)

My own marriage molt happened over two years ago. And while I’ve built a new, stronger shell, there are still moments when I long for the safety I thought I had. I still wrestle with the story of how life was supposed to go—not because I regret my choice, but because some losses stay with you. Maybe they always will.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about that little crab again. It feels like another passage moment. Another shedding season.

This time, it’s not quite as heavy, but it’s no less important. My life isn’t being flipped upside down, yet that familiar discomfort—the kind that signals change—is making the rounds.

I’m questioning what “success” even means anymore. What that large number on my social media platform really represents. What kind of content feels authentic versus what feels like chasing validation. I don’t know what part of my Holisticallygrace shell to shed. More importantly, I have no idea what my next shell will look like.

And while I don’t have those answers yet, I do know what I’d tell you if you were in my shoes, sitting in my therapy chair, trying to make sense of the ache pulling you forward.

Here’s what I’d say:

🔸 Tune inward and listen. Not to the loud, anxious chatter, but to the quiet, inconvenient nudge that tells you something is off. That whispering.

🔸 Sit with the uncertainty. Don’t rush to solve for x. Let awareness be enough for now. There’s nothing to “fix.”

🔸 Reframe endings as beginnings. Let go—because in doing so, you create space for something new.

🔸 Have a conversation with fear. Ask it: What message do you have for me? Then thank it for trying to keep you safe—even if it’s also keeping you small.

🔸 Sleep on it. No good decisions are made from a place of exhaustion or desperation.

🔸 Lean on your people. Whatever community looks like for you, go there. You don’t have to do this alone. This isn’t a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” moment—you’re going to need all hands on deck.

And finally, I’d leave you with this quote that’s been sitting with me lately:

“Let me fall if I must fall. The one I will become will catch me.”

(Google says this is attributed to Rumi, Baal Shem Tov, and Sheryl Sandberg? Who knows anymore. All I know is it hit all the right spots.)

So here I am, once again, standing at the edge of another molt. Maybe you are too.

If that’s the case, I hope you remember to be kind and tender to the softness—to give yourself grace as you shed what no longer fits and make your way toward your one wild and precious life.

With love, actually,
Maria G.