It was mostly during third grade when my two best friends and I would play Charlie’s Angels, the popular 1970s detective series, featuring three beautiful, brilliant women and a mysterious boss, Charlie. Despite being blonde, I always played dark-haired Sabrina, the quintessential tomboy. Deep down, I didn’t mind: she was smart and could run fast. We invented crimes, tapped into our imagination for sequences and attempted to pin the doings on one of our brothers. We wrote up our findings and presented them to Charlie, played by a sibling, a parent, or, when desperate, my friend Rebecca’s Doberman. He always appeared to be listening, must have been the ears.
There was also Wonder Woman. She was tall, beautiful, smart, strong, and always solved the crime. These four TV heroes gave birth to the superwoman ideal. They could do it all and were unapologetic about being a black belt in karate or knowing how to fly an invisible jet. These women gave me all I needed to construct the Yvette I hoped to be. They gave me permission to feel as though I could do or be anything and that, for an eight-year-old, was life altering.
I carried that superhero cape of hope and possibility, of potential invincibility, for most of my life. Through disappointments, hardships, challenges, and trauma, I wrapped myself up, tucked myself in, and folded back into myself, believing that I would survive, that I could solve the problem and get past whatever it brought me. What I did not learn, until much later, was that being a superhero requires heroism, and, at times, that can mean just having the strength to get out of bed.
In fifth grade, we had a long-term substitute teacher, Mrs. Holdsworth, who would soon become a permanent fixture, and who inspired me to become a teacher. She was in her twenties, smart, beautiful, and so kind. She rarely raised her voice, which was a major victory as we were a rowdy bunch. She embraced who we were, as individuals. I was strong, loud, obnoxious, and could outplay most of the boys in P.E. class. That year, I learned never to apologize for being myself. That acceptance has remained with me to this day, allowing me to share the same sentiment with others.
One day, she announced that we would be writing about what we “wanted to be when we grew up.” We were to focus on 2-3 things and justify our choices, undoubtedly a standard elementary writing assignment, particularly for those on the precipice of middle school. I recall writing brain surgeon, hairdresser, and flight attendant. My secret superhero identity led me to discount this alleged incongruency. I had my whole life ahead of me. Why choose just one thing?
Reflecting on how hard I tried to reach for so many different things, the choices were not even remotely farfetched. I loved Science, still do. I loved people, talking to them, making them feel good, and I had grown up around airplanes, traveling, and hoped to continue that, too. I wanted adventure, change, excitement, novelty, and believed I could achieve all three if I really put my mind to it. In that moment, my cape got a bit longer and stronger.
When we are young and the road seems to lay endlessly ahead, there is time to choose, to try, to fail, to retry, to start again, and while I am a firm believer that tomorrow is another starting line, I have recently come to recognize that my cape has thinned, the beloved material is so thoroughly worn that it will soon become transparent. And yet, I still wake up and don it every day, operating under the premise that there is another mystery to solve, another criminal to catch, another goal to meet. I never considered taking it off, letting go, setting it down. One day, the decision was made for me.
I recently went out on medical leave. I am severely burned out and began to react physiologically. I felt it months ago but plowed ahead anyway, tightening my cape, pulling it around me, telling myself that I could get through it, find the other side, and then I would be fine.
But I fell. I slammed headfirst into a challenge I could not find my way around. In my fastidious work ethic, I lost sight of myself. I stopped caring for myself, and it caught up with me. The important lesson that I am learning now is that I did not bring this on myself; I am not to blame. I did everything I could. But there was no puzzle awaiting clues or bad guys hiding in the bushes, waiting to be found. This time, my superpower was instinctive; only by the time I could finally recognize it, it was too late.
For most of my life, I have believed that even when I failed, there was not a problem I couldn’t figure out or strong-arm my way through. The more I was told I couldn’t, the harder I fought. If there was a contest or a challenge, I participated. Knowing I was not the smartest or fastest didn’t stop me. I was built on grit. What I didn’t know, I learned. If I wanted to try something, I would. And I often failed spectacularly, but I would try nonetheless.
I have spent years telling myself that I am not trapped. I can still do anything, at any time, under any circumstance. Even as I write this, I visualize Wonder Woman. But recent days have altered my perception slightly as I attempt to right my course. One of the most humbling lessons of late is that I cannot right the course by myself. I need others to help me, and I need to ask for their help.
I was walking today in the park. The sun was shining, and children were playing across the way, at the same elementary school where I used to play. As I turned a corner, I was immediately surrounded by a flock of small birds. They somehow flew around me, in sync, and then turned left and right and then soared across treetops and landed on the tiles of the building adjacent to the school.
I watched in delight and awe, the precise movements, the beauty of their flight and the gentle landing as they tucked away their wings. In that moment, I thought of my own life, my own drive, my desire to keep reinventing myself, turning first one way and then another, still feeling unsure about my final destination. I realized that those birds don’t question who they are; they just are.
Today, in that moment, it struck me, the thought that I am, here. I have arrived. Anything that comes now, by choice or by fate, is an extension of all that I have become. There is something so profound in that realization.
I came home, sat down, and began to write. My students always began by writing what they know. Our mantra was “Live it. Write it. Share it.” I called my therapist and shared my revelation. I could hear her empathy and feel her warmth coming through the phone when she said, simply, poignantly, “Yvette, it’s time to set down the cape.”
There are no more crimes to solve. There are no more wars to end or conflicts to right. There is nothing left to prove to others or to myself. I have lived a wonderfully challenging, vibrant, accomplished, and hopeful life thus far, and as my fingers move across the keyboard, I look up, imagining my cape hanging from the coat rack, waiting for its chance to be worn again, perhaps by one of my sons, or maybe, someday, a grandchild.
If I might offer this advice, take the time to right your course; search for who you want to be. Embrace the struggle, hunt for the clues and find the joy in help from others. Allow love to envelop you; revel in it. Allow your dreams to carry you through whatever life you are crafting for yourself. Remind yourself that whatever that looks like, it is enough, and you are a superhero in your own right.
Today, in that moment, it struck me, the thought that I am, here. I have arrived. Anything that comes now, by choice or by fate, is an extension of all that I have become. There is something so profound in that realization.
