What my dad left behind

1.

The left big toe was always hidden.

On the sandy beach, she was always buried in the sand. But she knew: while she should be burying her head in the sand, the right big toe would be proudly showing off her normality, enjoying the strong, warm energy of the sun.

When the left big toe boarded a boat, she would get stuck in a small puddle gathered in the corner. She felt suffocated, like she was being water tortured, while her only friend, the pinky toe, whispered something constantly. But the sound was drowned out by the water. She was too busy living through the right big toe, who was calmly lying out in the boat, getting a suntan. That made the left big toe’s water torture bearable. She also felt, the  time moved faster that way.

The oversized left big toe was sad.

But she didn’t try to figure out why she had to be treated so differently from the right big toe, or when it all went wrong.

She didn’t seek answers or fight back.

2.    

“What’s your favorite part of your body?”

This was a question I’ve encountered, whether as a child or an adult, living in Korea or abroad. People love to ask this kind of question. Whenever I get asked, the first thing that flashes through my mind is my “abnormal” left big toe.  

My most shameful part of my body.

Who taught me to be ashamed of my left big toe?  

At the end of that trail is my father.

“Oh lord, look at that toe! The big one, with that bunion sticking out! How are you ever going to get married with feet like that? That thing needs surgery.”

I can’t even remember when I first heard those words. My dad was obsessed with my “abnormal” left big toe—bigger and more crooked than any "normal" toe. He was fixated on it, full of disgust, and he made me believe that it was my life’s biggest problem.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but at some point, I started to understand his words, and with them, a heavy sense of shame toward my left big toe began to build up inside me.

My father would say almost every day, “A girl with feet that big, with such ugly, deformed toe—this is bad. A woman with big feet will have bad luck. Women’s feet are supposed to be small and delicate.”

I just heard it over and over, as if it were a truth I needed to absorb, I thought everything my father said, held the truth I had to know.  

So, I never showed my toes to anyone. The more I hid them, the bigger and more twisted my left big toe became, in my mind.

The only place my ugly left toe could freely be bare and rest was at home, with my family. But even at home, my father never let it be. The moment my big, ugly toe enjoyed the world without socks, he would point it out again. So my left big toe, under my father’s relentless attention, it secretly grew into a huge and monstrous existence. I had learned to live with it, to let it quietly fade into the background of my life.

Slowly, I started to distance my left big toe from my body. Whenever I focused on it, my big toe became my whole existence, carrying all the weight of my shame. It felt like it was drifting further and further from me.

Yet, because of my big left toe, I felt another strong emotion.

“Oh lord, we need to get that toe fixed!”

My father’s constant attention, strangely enough, felt like a form of care to me...  My father never said he loved me.

Even if it came from a misguided belief that a woman’s life goal is to find a good husband, and that to be chosen by one, you needed small, smooth feet without bunions, it still made me feel seen. His offer to pay for surgery felt like a big deal to me.

It was a strange existence—this mixture of shame and normalcy and father’s love.  

My big left toe has lived both as a huge presence and a tiny, insignificant part of my life.

Why do I keep letting this big toe shrink me?

Why does my heart pound in embarrassment whenever someone looks at my left big toe?

Why do I allow this toe to throw my whole existence into turmoil?

At the end of this curiosity lies an empty version of myself, consumed by fear of something so trivial, spending so much energy and time on something that means so little.

As I chase down the reasons for my growing shame over this toe, a small image quietly rises to the surface.

A version of me, disgusted with my shallow self. My shallow self is afraid of fellow shallow selves.

Someone must have taught my father that women have to look the way men like them to.

And later he taught me. 

3.

After  the yoga class, somebody told me

“I like your  long and lean toes. My toes are short, chubby, and ugly. I wish I had toes like yours. I have to wear socks or closed-toed shoes.”