Up In The Sky! It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's...

When I look back on my childhood, some of my best memories are of me playing in my room. I was never much of an outdoors kid, preferring to play inside with my toys or read the newest Bailey School Kids book. Of course when I had to I would play outside with the rest of the neighborhood kids, but it was never as fun as when I was by myself. When I played in my room, I could let my imagination run wild. I remember playing with my X-Men action figures for hours creating the most convoluted stories. Sometimes my dad would join me, he always chose to be Cyclops which was totally cool with me since I never really cared for Cyclops. Looking back I know that my dad would have preferred to take me outside and have me work on my swing or catching ground balls. Rather than forcing me to do something I didn't want to do, my dad accepted me for who I was and played action figures with me. That's the thing with my dad, he has always accepted me for who I was rather than expecting me to fit a predetermined role. 

I don't know when I first discovered superheroes but I am forever grateful that I did. These heroes represented everything that I wanted to be and I set out to learn as much about them as I could. I wanted to know how they became who they were so that I could hopefully join their ranks one day. The best thing about the X-Men is that they didn't become superheroes because of some gamma ray accident or being bitten by a radioactive spider. The X-Men were born with their powers. When I went to bed, rather than praying for a new bike or an A on a test, I would pray that I would develop powers. See, the X-Men didn't develop their powers until they were teenagers so from the age of 7 to probably 13 I was still holding out that I would one day be able to fly or freeze things with my touch. Unfortunately I never developed any powers and as I got older I would bring out the X-Men less and less. It seems that along with the toys, my imagination was brought out less and less as well. I used to create entire worlds within my room and these days I have difficulty visualizing an outfit I would want to wear. If your imagination needs to be worked like a muscle to be maintained, then I have let it atrophy. Maybe it is the winter but I feel like when I look around everything seems so boring and plain. What I wouldn't give to be able to look at the world like I used to. Rather than just seeing life as it is, I want to see life as it could be. I don't mean for this to sound like a loss of innocence or something but things seemed so much cooler when I was younger. Who knows maybe those powers are still in me, we Petermans are late bloomers.