Batman and Superman are cool but you have to
wonder why they fight crime in their pajamas. You're not crazy, they do--and
I can prove it. When I was five, my mother bought me a Batman costume for Halloween and
it said right there on the label: "Costume can be used as sleepwear".
And sleep in it I did, probably until the next Halloween. It made me feel
strong and mighty, a girl batman, a real bad-ass. Not much has changed. I did
stop dressing up for Halloween when my kids stopped and even then my costume
consisted only of a witch's hat ('cause witches are bad-ass too), but I kept
the job of world-saving in my heart.
But how do you save the world when you don't
have a single super-power? It's a dilemma, for sure, and a problem I thought
about for a long time. Wealth is a super-power as money can save lives, heal
the sick, house the poor, but I didn't have that either. What did I have to
offer? I was just one person with good intentions and there were so many things
that needed fixing. I didn't even know where to start. Then I thought, what
would Batman do? He wouldn't hesitate, he would leap into action even if he
might not succeed, or it wouldn't be enough, or he might die (don't worry, Batman
always lives), so I took a leap. I joined a civic organization, I wrote a
letter to the editor, I joined activist social media groups, I gathered
signatures to restore the vote to the disenfranchised. I kept going until one
day I realized things were changing, and I was helping.
Sitting at my computer late at night sending
e-mails, planning meetings, and writing letters, I realized that I, too, am
saving the world in my pajamas. And Batman and Superman showed me how it was
done.
