Don’t forget!  Free psychic readings this week – please refer to my previous post.

I got a bit upset last night.  I’ve been thinking a lot about heros, idols, having someone in your life that you look up to, admire, want to emulate.  This particularly stuck with me as Sweetie referred to Kurt Cobain as one of her heroes.  Honestly, I just didn’t get it.

So I thought to myself, who was my hero?  Did I have any heros at all?  And I realized, I didn’t.

That made me worry.

Is there something wrong with me?  Isn’t a bit of hero-worship normal?  Doesn’t everyone have a hero of some sort?

I thought of the people I admired when I was a teenager.  I had a poster of Einstein in my bedroom.  I wouldn’t have called him my hero so much then, moreso a cool guy.  The best part about calculus was learning Einstein’s more complex formulas for myself.  I love that stuff.

But was he my hero?  No.  I didn’t want to be Einstein.  Leonardo da Vinci I also thought was super-cool, and I surrounded myself with a lot of his sketches and paintings, but again, I wouldn’t call him a hero.

I had some musicians that I’d follow – Alannis Morissette was one, Tori Amos another.  But I certainly wouldn’t have called either my hero.

Huh, I thought to myself.  So I asked my Sweetie, “Why was Kurt your hero?”

She didn’t really have a straight answer for me, only that Kurt expressed something within her for her.  “John was one of my heros too,” she said, as though she were clarifying something, “But John was always a dead hero to me.  Because Kurt was an alive hero, and then he died, I really took it hard, you know?”

I really didn’t know.  At this point, I felt the tears prickle my eyes.  Have I missed out on something really important here?

Then Kurt’s there, consoling:  “Naw, that’s alright.  You were your own hero, that’s what you want.”

I was my own hero.

I’ve been thinking about that, chewing the cud of this idea for a day now.  I think that’s right.

I think I was born this way.  I never have looked outside of myself for confirmation or validation.  When a teacher told me I wasn’t as smart as my friends, I *knew* he was wrong.  I didn’t need anyone else to tell me so.  And this isn’t coming from a conceited place, and I know this because I’ll admit, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder when I was a teenager.  I’m struggling to put words around this quiet place inside me that’s always known who I am and what I’m about.

So maybe I’ve never had to look beyond myself for those things that other people look to their heros for.  This doesn’t make me better, or worse than they.  Just different, I guess.

My mother tells me that my psychic Oma was very self-possessed.  I related a story to my Sweetie about how Oma scandalized Europe when she wore a modern speedo-style swim suit to the beach one day.  She didn’t like the modest bathing garments people used to wear back then.  I think she was even arrested for indecency.

Sweetie says, “Wow, that’s just like you, going naked at the beach!”

Ha!  It’s true.  I figure, why wear anything at all when you go swimming?  I’m a fan of the skinny-dip.  There’s usually only a couple of other people at the beach anyway, and there’s such a high population of hippies out here, no one bothers me about it.

Maybe being your own hero is like skinny dipping at the beach in broad daylight.  It’s unusual, takes a bit of brass, but it feels really good.