holding out for a hero

via

It's hard choosing a movie to watch when you have to cater to a family of six. Especially when two of them are men - manly men. No such thing as watching a brilliant movie about love or life or anything real. You need to have a nice action flick, or something funny. That's alright though, I appreciate a good action flick just as much or more than anyone else. So we decided on Spiderman 2. A movie none of us had seen in years, we could barely remember what it was about. My last memory of it was sitting on the edge of a couch next to a boy I did NOT want to cuddle with, and hoping with all my might it would be a much shorter movie than I remembered. So I watched Spiderman fly through the city, fall in love, defeat a bad guy, and wondered.

Something wonderful about vacations is that I have time to read. I have time to dive into another world that I haven't seen in a long long time. Because school, and life in general, just really doesn't permit me time to relax anymore. Gone are the days of reading seven books a week. Checking out stacks half my size from the library. Reading in my room after my parents said good night in the fading sunlight through the window - which I attribute to my bad eyesight now. And as Harry Potter met his godfather for the first time, and saved the day by turning back time... I wondered.

I sat down on the cold cement, a little too close to my sister, watching my breath move in clouds through the air. Again, I was here. Again, so were so many others. There was an energy in the stadium that was palpable, even though the numbers were dwindling because of the holiday weekend. I watched and listened to everyone around me, and wondered. And the men - boys, they seem like boys to me - ran on the field and began the game.

Wondered. What is a hero? Someone we look up to, respect, want to be. Someone we run to. Someone we cry to. Someone we count on. And what is this fascination? The commitment people have to reading comic books, watching super hero movies, reading books about magic and right and wrong, watching sports... We need heros. When life is getting to be too much, what would it be like if someone swooped in and carried you away. Defeated all your bad guys, used magic to make things right, intercepted a wicked pass? There is adversity in everything. We need to know it can be taken care of. That there is some good out there, that someone is going to protect us. 

Because if someone else can do it, maybe we can too. Maybe we can be good, and brave, and strong. Maybe we can stick up for what we believe in, protect our loved ones, defeat our own bad guys. 

And I think maybe that's what a hero really does - shows us what we are each capable of. That no matter how bad anything gets, we are capable of being a super hero.

And to me, that's kind of cool.

p.s. long time no see. how was your thanksgiving?