I can’t stop listening to that song this week. Writing has always been my dream. But, I’ve always had a head full of doubt, because of my past. Writing lets me scream. The more I do it, the more I see that it’s what my soul was made to do.
When I was in first grade we played soccer at recess. One day we were playing with the second graders and the game was paused to ponder if the teams were fair. One of the older kids pointed at me and said, “Yeah they’re fair…they’ve got super kid.”
My skills won me the nickname super kid. It was irrelevant how many older kids were on the other team. I evened things up. I never had a feeling like that again athletically. I absolutely killed it in first grade recess soccer, but I just couldn’t convince myself that I was as great as that kid said I was. Somewhere along the way, not just in sports but in life, I lost all confidence. I’ve been a kid with a head full of doubt the whole way.
But, all the sudden…and this Avett Brothers’ song says it perfectly…I can see my dream. And it’s up to me to uncage that dream. To free it. To let it out. To write this story that I know I have to tell. And it’s kind of that same “who me?” feeling I have these days that I had when I was called super kid.
But, now I actually believe in myself. I can take a compliment. I’ve been great all along, but listened to doubt. This blog and therapy have let me scream out the bad thoughts. And I think everybody is capable of doing that and getting to that head shaking moment of disbelief that says, “What if I am super kid?” What if I am fantastic? What if the voices of doubt were bull shit and the truth is something else entirely?
I dvr’d a musical performance of Les Miserables a while back and while watching it tonight I realized that what if feeling is brilliantly expressed by Victor Hugo. Jean Valjean deserves punishment, but gets grace. What? There’s still hope for me? I’d given up on myself. I feel like that guy every day.
The opening scene is him in prison. Everyone is singing, “Look down.” There’s no hope. Darkness reigns. God, I remember that feeling. The other day, I drove past one of the shitbag hotels I stayed at after I got kicked out of the house. During those days it was so hard to look anywhere but down. I was just so ashamed.
And really that’s how I felt in religion and in life. Like, Valjean I was a slave to the law. But, like Valjean grace hit me when I least deserved it. And so when that scene came on where the bishop let him off the hook, tears streamed down my face. It’s the exact feeling/look of shock that I had when my therapist called my stripper friend an angel.
When you think you’re beyond hope, but hope appears, there’s no better feeling. Valjean was in utter despair. He simply could not win. And out of the fucking blue he got the sweetest gift. All his bridges had been burned…he shit on the one person who had showed him kindness, but he was taught that’s exactly how this grace thing works.
But, that’s it man. He lived out that Mumford and Sons song I was quoting. So did I. The burning of bridges was my fault. It was Valjean’s fault. But, grace takes on our fault and gives us a pass. It says that bridge was no good anyway. Let me show you this new bridge to this new life where doubt is absent and you can see that your dreams are within reach. Grace takes our feeling that we need to look down, lifts up our chin and says to us with tear filled eyes, “You’re superkid.”
I loved the way it was worded in Les Miserables. Valjean was under the mistaken notion that he had to fuck everyone else over, because that’s what had been done to him. The bishop offered him “rest from pain…rest from wrong.” Valjean wanted his silver instead. Grace had other ideas.
Life has so much pain. So much wrong. But, grace offers rest from that. With apologies to Alexander Graham Bell, grace was the all time best invention. And one of the coolest things about it is that it only works on people who know they don’t deserve it. You can’t buy it. Or earn it. You have to fuck up to redeem it. And when it comes to fucking up, I am a super kid.
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