Today I find a bumpy envelope addressed to me.
“Birthday Girl!”
No name. Belated from the UK. My sister’s earnest handwriting.
Dear girl always makes me smile with her scrapbooking genius. Its a letter for me, written one part essay, one part instruction manual. “Super (wo) Man!!!”, it salutes, like a generous birthday greet. a superman cardboard cut-out falls out from the letter, except the cut-out is adorned with my face instead of o’ Kent (she even chose a picture she knows I favor).
And so I am greeted by a grinning ‘Super-Myself’ accompanied by four other strange looking parts of cardboard puzzle. What are those? The curiosity of a child approaching new toys fills me. What a treat. They are oddly shaped. They don’t look like they can fit together. For a moment, the fact that it could be a puzzle I was unable to piece mocked my recent musings for some jigsaw love. ( I am tired of coming home and being unconstructive in my free time, and decided jigsaws could be the missing cherry). I finally gave up her odd little cardboard bits, and read her manual on the flip side of the yellow foolscap letter.
“1 piece original cloak,” Ah. The red piece fitted neatly beneath ‘Super-Me’. Of course. Its Superman’s red cloak. “The original, the full-flavor, your cape is constantly introspective and self-improving, which can be a little tiring at times.” True.
“3 pieces special cloaks”. Genius. Interchangeable capes. For days when being red and shiny just isn’t enough. They’re exactly the same shape and size as Superman’s red cape, but these other ones are patterned, instead of plain graphic red. One of them- a street map. Another one, a mosiac of my scribbled name. The last one, she sketched Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, and Harvey Milk. The little buffet of male role models should be further analysed later. Meanwhile, the powers of these capes are named: Direction. Yourself. People. How well-thought out. Whenever I need divine intervention. What else can a person want?
The idea is winsome. She’s outdone herself again.
One thing that strikes me hard, how vulnerable i feel at the moment, and how my sister understands that I need strength and support. Thank you. Life doesn’t deal us with special capes. We have only bare flesh. Can people really own capes? perhaps. Capes sewn from experiences of hardship, capes borne out of love, capes modelled after iconic role models. We need capes. Because this journey called Life, I’m afraid sometimes we require superpowers.
Super-Me. She even included blue-tack so that I could attach the cape right away. But she stuck it right across my smiling mug. In my haste to remove the bluetack (for what? to confirm that the face was indeed mine?), the print from my mouth tears off slightly as well. So now Super-me is partially disfigured. I am missing some teeth and gum.
Even better, I hadn’t realize the significance of the blue-tack and tossed it aside for the colourful cardboard bits. Now I don’t have anything to fasten the cape onto Super-Me. And I have a disfigured grin. That is Everyday me. Flawed, and cape-less. Which isn’t so bad. What do you do if at age 24 you’re perfect and with perfect super-powers? What else would life have in store right?
No really, I’m not trying to put a nice spin to things. Naked and flawed Super-Me resonates with me. I am tired, tired, tired everyday from work. I wake up and I groan, I go to bed, and I wish i don’t wake up from my dreams. Optimism weaves in and out my consciousness, leaving me with yo-yo-ing spirits on a daily basis. I had thought this job was the best I could’ve scored after the months of searching. I don’t disagree yet. But yet the stress is getting the better of me. Sandwiched in this reality, I’m frantic and fidgety- am I stuck? Am I going to fail? Am I not going to be able to run away?
I’ll locate the blue tack.
P.s. how come the cardboard cut-outs smell like Play-doh?
Filed under: quirks, smilies, working world
