Thursday, November 13, 2008

Superhero, or The Ideal

Superhero, or The Ideal
11/12/08 AEDM #12
Golden Fluid Acrylic.

This is the Superhero, our perfect ideal of life, ourselves, a mate. This is all the potential we can find in life. This is all our powers. We are indeed superheroes inside our skins. We have the ability to do startling things if we just unleash our inner superhero. We can save our own day. We can fly across the skyline. We can put out fires with our irrepressible spirit.

If you were to pull this image, then the universe would be telling you how powerful you truly are and to trust those superhuman insights, those heroic endeavors. This card is your "YES YOU CAN!" card. This card is the sign that you are at the point where you have the ability to achieve those dreams you have been dreaming. That's how strong you are. That's how amazing you are.

However, if you were to pull this in the reverse, the unbalanced version of the Superhero, you are put on notice that your perfectionism is harming your forward motion. There is no way to be perfect. There is no way to do it all without sacrificing anything. There is no reason for you to expect superhuman anything, because you are, in fact, human and gorgeously flawed, like every last one of us. You might also be aware that you are expecting too much of the people around you. They too have flaws. We cannot learn the ways of the world without stumbling and making mistakes.

As for me, when I posted my Superhero picture, I saw how flawed my photograph was. But understanding the other superhuman tasks I have ahead of me today, I let it go. I don't have time to go back out to my porch where the best light is, and take more pictures, down load, upoload, wait for the tick tick time going by before I could get the perfect picture. Even superheroes don't do it all. Superman is super strong, can fly and see through walls and stop time with his breath, but he can't do anything around kryptonite, and he isn't super stretchy like Elastigirl. And frankly, even if Superman is nearly perfect, I always thought he was the most boring of superheroes.

And another Superhero thing, today. Potty training. I'm afraid I have been expecting my babies to be instantaneously potty capable. Without realizing what a feat learning to use the potty is. Gaining control over your bodily functions, understanding the signals in time, keeping a constant eye on when it's time to go, mastering your own disappointment when you make mistakes.

The boy is making steps, but the girl just looks bewildered when she makes puddles on the floor. I think the puddles are inevitable. I have to remember that she's not already a grown up Superhero capable of holding in the weewee until she gets to the potty. She needs to make her mistakes, learn the signals, connect the dots so that she can be her own PeePee Girl, power of the Potty! And I have to let her learn her powers, not force them on her. And I have to practice my own Power of the Patience.

Okay, this is silly. :)

But another of my Superpowers

SUPERMOMMYWRITER
3036 words yesterday! Even though the boy refused his nap screaming until he woke his baby sister who then began yelling herself, at which point the boy fell promptly asleep. Grrrr! And yet, although I could hear kids playing and/or yelling in their room the entire time I was writing, I went from 9oo words to 3000 without quite knowing how I did it!

I am going to glory in my mysterious superpower a little longer. Hopefully there will be a repeat performance this afternoon. I've already vanquished The Messmaker Team, who escaped the confines of their room to spill a bottle of water on mommy's bed and make pen and jewelry soup out of my bedside stuff holder. I don't hear them any more. I'd better get to my novel. I will tackle the Fortress of Messitude later.


nanowrimo total w/c 30098

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this post. It made me feel sane on a day when my little one has a cold and fever and screamed and there were so many things I was supposed to do - I was supposed to be super human and instead I was just a perfectly imperfect human.

We are potty training too - loosely - she just likes to sit there and hang out...it's kinda funny. Although yesterday she did "make a peepee" and then whispered, "Again" and tried desperately to make that happen. It is quite a process.

SuperWriter I applaud you for all the words you discovered yesterday and wish you more luck with it today.

Kate Lord Brown said...

Could do with a Superhero in this neck of the woods. Funny that we are all at potty stage ... the glamour of motherhood. Good work Superosymamacita!

Jen Lee said...

3036 words--HOORAY! I'm cheering you on--so excited about your novel. From one momma to another, I know what a feat it is that you're doing this in a month. You're around the bend now--it won't be long...

Anonymous said...

I love when the universe just gives you an amazing chain of synchronicities just because she can... Your post just hit all of these different points in my experience:

Listening to the radio, the tragic news of a captain of a fishing boat lost at sea and a quote from his daughter: "He was a strong man inside and out." Superman and mortality and parenthood all in one.
The fact that I have my suspicions that my first baby just might be starting to grow in my belly.
My own work on my novel, which includes two toddlers...
Reading your adventures in motherhood so help me imagine my own fiction and imagine what it will be to take on that role in real life! Thank you, and keep up the amazing work!

Unknown said...

you don't need to hold out for a hero, you are your own hero. we definitely hold within us the ability to make or break ourselves, don't we?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...