The Ordinary Hero

You know what? It is me...doing the same thing with you I did with the rest...only different. Acting like a typical victim of 23 chromosomes from a shadow of a man with nothing to give but DNA. Can you smell his absence on me? I know the rest did. My low self-esteem attracted them like pheromones, and they knew whatever minimal expression of affection would surpass what he did. I thought loving them was enough to make them see what duck-and-dodge daddy didn't. I was so full of crap back then.

I didn't love you, though. Not even infatuation, really. You existed in my imagination; your presence was a coincidental manifestation of all the things I missed in them. A gorgeous manifestation...but a reflection of my hurt feelings nonetheless. And I elevated you to the level of "different" while I stayed at "ordinary" in awe of my own thoughts. You were just as I imagined you..."different."

I recently realized that it's people thinking they're different that makes them exactly the same as everyone else. Desperate for identity. Wanting to be separately connected. Looking for a place of social solace on Facebook or trying to enlighten the masses on Twitter. "Different"... isn't.

We all do the same things; the difference lies in our personalities. It's how we interpret our actions. How we redeem ourselves from our mistakes. Good and bad, right and wrong, and all the other bookends we like to claim really only exist in the murky waters between our ears and the cavity between our shoulders that connects our vertical halves. I guess I really liked the way you rationalized your life. How you made sense of your pitfalls...and forged ahead in life with your sense of duty. In my ordinariness, however, I forgot that pattern of thinking is employed by the masses.

It's my fault you began to think so highly of yourself. I saw you as something as bigger than me, and I didn't notice it until you showed me you thought you were bigger than me. Bigger than my run-of-the-mill complexion and body type. Greater than my sense of fashion. Deeper than my thoughts. More descriptive than my words. Well...you are...you are..."different." And you made me see I'm not.

But here's the kicker. My pride lies in my ordinary behavior. I think. I write. I live. I love deeply. I appreciate the beauty in the faults of the commoners. I'm flawed in the best way because I recognize it. I'm selfish. Opinionated. Quick-tempered, at times. I'm competitive. Talkative. Moody. I've seen the height of my anger and the depth of my sadness.  My baggage isn't Dooney & Bourke. The path I travel isn't always tread in Nikes. I'm a mess in a manageable pile. But I'm enough to understand that I don't and never will have all the answers. Nothing special...except I'm me. And that's what I've been waiting for others to notice. I'm not different, as I once thought I wanted to be. I'm ordinary people. Just me.

Leave me lost; don't save me. Let me write my own epic. File me among the ranks of nobodies who came before me, for even they had epiphanies. That's a luxury the special...the different...will never be afforded. They are far too occupied with their "special-ness."