To Being My Own SuperHero

For the whole month of February, I will be posting a letter of gratitude to the people who have contributed immensely to the woman I am today. Some letters I’m thinking of sending to those I’ve written about and some I hope are never read. This will be the first time I post daily. So I am really keen on seeing how it will turn out, both for me and for those who follow this blog. I look forward to your thoughts and feedback in the comments section below. The theme for all the letters is that ‘We Are Stories’ and I will be telling mine in #29LettersOfGratitude for a whole month. If you would like to join me (PLEASE DO!!!) remember to link me in your posts.

 

I think the first time I realized super heroes were a myth, was when none one of them pitched to save me from my mother’s beatings. They were always administered whenever I’d write my biological father as my role model in any of my journals as a child.

Spiderman why didn’t you ever think of rocking up then, and save me from Cruela’s irate episodes?

After a while, I ended up despising myself for the words I secretly inscribed because I always knew they would land me in big trouble; repeatedly finding myself being punished for my own private thoughts. I later understood why; my biological parents have a bad history, a love affair that ended abruptly because of an unplanned pregnancy.

There I was a child in my mother and stepfather’s house totally being ungrateful by having an absent father as the one I look up to; my young mother had every right to feel betrayed. She’ll never know but every hiding she gave, made me grieve the absence of my absent father even more.

I know Cruela was right, that my dad didn’t deserve any acknowledgement I gave him. But I was only just coming to terms with my own dad’s truancy. I was still too young to distinguish between fantasy and reality, so the only memories I had of him growing up lived in my head; fairy-tales that fabricated him as the perfect father.

As an adult I know I gave him an undeserved label. And his name has gradually been replaced with mine in PINK BOLD LETTERS. I have discovered that it is our very own courage that is able to aid us in overcoming all kinds of rejection, denial, hurt, disappointment and heartbreaks.

Cover Photo By: Lutendo Malatji

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Have you ever had to be your own super hero?