On Superheroes and Superpowers

Just keep going.

Even if I don't know you, I know one thing about you: You've either gotten, or you are going to, get your ass kicked by the world from time to time. The world is a tough, hard, cruel place. It isn't for the faint of heart. We all pile up plenty of losses. That's why the longer I'm in this world, the more I've come to see that there's truly only one Superpower: Resilience.

The thing about resilience is that it's both necessary (because the world is so damn hard) and available to us all. All it takes is to keep moving forward, one step, one crawl, one roll out of the fetal position at a time. And because part of resilience is that we get our butts kicked, resilience doesn't usually feel like a chest thumping, primal screaming, spiking the football superpower. Mostly, it feels more like the groundhog poking its head out of its hole to see when spring is coming. But there is magic in the groundhog's resilience.

We all love a redemption story. Our heroes are not flawless. They are flawed. They lose sometimes. And they come back stronger than ever. That’s why we love them. It isn’t their super-hero-ness as much as it is their humanity. It’s the fact that we can relate to them and their loss, their defeat, their kryptonite so to speak. And yet, just losing isn’t enough. Our heroes stay in the fight and give an effort toward building their world into a better place. They don’t even truly have to succeed all the time. The struggle is real and goes on. Superheroes don’t always win. They just need to give the effort. 

And guess, what? That’s you! You’re a superhero. Don’t doubt me. You are a superhero to someone, you SavageMFer you, and you might not even know it.

I know this because I am a superhero to someone too. I learned it on December 24th, 2020, the worst I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Emerson, my daughter, had gone shopping with my sister-in-law, and I had the morning to do some shopping and gift wrapping. For some reason, the past few years just hit me hard that day. I was struggling mightily. 

Knowing not to suffer in silence, I called a couple friends, both professional social workers. One of my friends tried to help with this comment, “You’ve been working your butt off and trying so hard to keep everything together, and it’s ok to have a moment sometimes. You can’t do it all and not crack at times. You aren’t Superman.” 

It felt good to have someone give me permission to take my moment and just let down my guard. Of course I was trying too hard and kicking my own ass for breaking down. It’s not weakness to have a breakdown like that. It’s the inevitable outcome of trying too hard to always keep everything in. I’m a professional in the field too. I get it. It’s just hard to see in yourself sometimes. 

That talk helped for all of 5 minutes. I was still feeling awful. I sat down and took stock of my life, and in that mood at that moment, I was only capable of seeing the losses. I was a mess. A wreck. I sat there crying, crying hard. 

And then…..Em walked in the door. I wasn’t expecting her back until later. But she caught me in that moment, and I couldn’t fake it. My puffy, tear-streaked face wasn’t going to let me lie or put a spin on it. I had to tell it to her straight. 

So we sat and talked about what I was feeling: How much I missed Mom…..how much I wished she was here (for herself and for others)…how much I felt like I was failing now in my life…how much I hated the fact that she, my daughter, was going to grow up without one of her parents, just like I did….

As I confessed all my issues and down feelings, I heard my friend’s words: “You aren’t Superman.” In my output of emotion and admission of my problems, I started to laugh at the fact that I tried to put on the Superman cape at all. I mean, who was going to be fine with all the crap I was dealing with? Of course I was breaking down. 

I decided to tell Em about the phone calls. I said, in a joking manner, “And do you know what McCall had the audacity to tell me? He told me I’m not Superman. Can you believe that?”

Em looked up, looked me straight in the eyes, and with neither a pause nor irony said, “Dad, you’re Superman to me.” 

Well, I’ll tell you, I thought I was crying hard before, but Em’s words kicked it up a notch. And in those words, something changed the cause of the tears. Maybe I didn’t feel like Superman. But here I was, bawling fool and all, and apparently I was still Superman to my daughter. Who knew? Not me.

So take it from one superhero to another. It’s easy to see in others but hard to see in ourselves. We have superpowers, and to me, the one superpower that matters the most in life is resilience. We all take an ass kicking at times. What truly matters is just to weather the storm and come back fighting. That’s it. You don’t even have to win as you fight your way back. Just stay in the fight. Keep giving the effort. That’s resilience, and it's a superpower, the best superpower. The wins will come as you keep fighting. And in that fight, you will inspire others to do the same. And that, my superhero friends, is how we change the world.