Written by Somewhere, deep down, I think we all have a little superhero in us. It’s the part that starts to whisper and nudge when something isn’t right. It’s that part that takes over when something happens and shit suddenly gets real. It’s that part that keeps us going, even when we’re certain that we can’t.
Once, my adventurous daughter (then age 2) decided to dive right in the swimming pool, and promptly sank straight to the bottom. I managed to hurdle a chair, jump in the water, and pull her out before she even had a chance to swallow a mouthful.
And just a few short weeks ago, I was driving down a dark Kansas highway when the headlights suddenly illuminated a large deer standing directly in the middle of my lane. I’d been cruising along for almost an hour with no cars in sight, yet my brain and my body seemed to immediately shift to auto-pilot the minute I saw those hooves in the headlights. My foot came off the gas and eased onto the brake. My eyes momentarily darted to the rearview mirror. My hands tightened as I gave the steering wheel a quick flick left, then right, and the car responded with precision, jumping into the left lane and missing the big buck by a few bare inches. It took several moments for my heart to stop pounding, and in those few moments I felt both vulnerable and invincible.
I think, sometimes, that superhero in us (that instinct or intuition, if you will) gets drowned out by all the noise we allow to cloud our brains. We tell ourselves we’re not good enough or not smart enough. We tell ourselves we don’t deserve any better. We tell ourselves it’s not worth it to take a stand, that it’s never going to change. We tell ourselves that we can’t, and then we don’t. We tell ourselves we shouldn’t, and then we won’t. We tell ourselves a whole line of bullshit just because it’s easier not to care than to actually give a damn.
If you ask me, we all need to tap into that superhero a little more often. We need to speak out when we know something is wrong. We need to support others who are too afraid to stand up for themselves. We need to do the things we know are right, even if those things are scary or difficult. We need to do the things we know are right, simply because they are the right things to do.
Last night, Cosette tapped into her inner superhero. And even though we don’t quite know what demons she was fighting, we woke this morning and we were impressed all the same.
Go get ’em, girl.
Lori Romano 