My Super Power (Holly Schindler)

 

If I have a super power, it's the same power most of our readers have...or should have. 

It's the power that says, "I can be anything."

Kids think the most unobtainable thing in the world is within reach. They think they'll be astronauts or ballerinas. Artists or singers. They'll own their own business. They'll rule the world.

And, okay, so I'm not thinking rule the world, exactly, but I do believe it's possible. Whatever crazy notion I have. 

Probably some of it stems from the "Why can't you?" Mom lobbed at me my entire life. If I ever dared to imply I might not be able to do something. That's the response I got. Usually curtly and through a frown that meant, Go figure it out. Now. 

I know what she meant. Nobody's born knowing how to do anything. Tie their shoes or feed themselves or use a toilet. Nothing. We have to learn literally everything we do, from getting dressed to making a bed to driving a car. Why can't you learn this one thing? her frown would always say. Why are you stopping now?

I hear it in my head, every single time I dare to think it--I couldn't do that is immediately met with, Why can't I?

It's that line of thinking that made me set out to become a writer. And it's that line of thinking that allowed me to publish work through my own imprint. It's also, now, the reason why I'm pursuing art and music, old loves that haven't been in my life for far too long. 

I'm sure it will lead me to most of my life's future adventures. 

I can do anything. 

But so can you.

Why can't you?

~

Holly Schindler is the author of the MG The Junction of Sunshine and Lucky.