My Maturing Superpower

Kathleen Vaught

It happens a little bit each day. 

With each new gray hair that sprouts through my brown locks fully formed, steely in both color and strength, my superpower gets stronger.

As every earned wrinkle appears around my eyes from laughter and weariness, creating a topographical map on my face traveling through the years of my joy and pain, this power begins to overtake my being.

Even my voice produces an effect that makes the power more resolute, determined to win out over the less extraordinary features and characteristics. The vibration in which my vocal chords attempt to communicate is becoming out of tune with the rest of those around me, and thus, apparently indiscernible.

All in all, my superpower and this dual identity it is forcing upon me has created quite a conundrum within me.  

I want to embrace my gray.

I long to cherish every wrinkle.

I need my voice now more than ever.

And yet.

Together, these amazing attributes that prove to the world that I have lived and am worthy and strong enough to survive the journey are also changing the way others around me view me.

My superpower is my age.

And my age is making me invisible.

Now what do I do?

Brush the gray out of my eyes, smile strong enough to add a few more wrinkles and say and do whatever the hell I want. 

 Photo Credit: Brigitte Lacombe