None of them involve a cape!
I may not have the power to fly or read minds, but I’ve developed a few, strange, human superpowers over the years that can also be seen as oddly comforting when you reframe them as a positive.
After I wrote Love and Other Incurable Ailments, I slowly realized I hadn’t invented the quirks of the main character Serenity. I gave her a few of my own.
Maybe being flawed is its own kind of magic.
1. Delete Reflex:
This happens when I share my opinions online… and then delete them. It’s a delicate art of expressing myself boldly, only to second-guess everything. I am a true master of self-editing in real time.
Many people with ADHD worry about being misunderstood or criticized, leading to posting… deleting… rewriting… deleting again.
It can take me a morning full of second-guessing to respond to an email if it needs to be longer than “Sure!” It’s an exhausting dance between wanting to be understood and wanting to disappear before anyone can misunderstand us.
Likewise, Serenity knows how easy it is to hide your truth before anyone can reject it. Growth comes in learning when to hit post and leave it out there.
2. Retroactive clarity:
I remember that one item I needed from the store while unpacking the groceries. It’s like realize what I truly need only after the moment has passed.
Eventually I’ll catch up and remember what I need the moment I need it. If that’s even possible.
Serenity has a somewhat similar gift. She spends much of the novel chasing the mystery of the letters, only to discover they led her somewhere entirely different. She eventually realizes the letters were never the destination—they were permission to leave the life she’d outgrown.
3. Imperfect Timing
I think of the perfect clapback an hour later, and then I find myself scolding a houseplant. My timing might be off, but sometimes delayed understanding is the only kind that sticks.
This is also one of the reasons I talk to myself, replaying past arguments with new lines.
4. Catastrophic Imagination:
The two powers of imagination and anxiety come into play when I research symptoms on WebMD and then panic. What I hoped was nothing blooms into a major illness requiring surgery and rehabilitation. Great relief comes when I find out it’s nothing.
Then again, I can’t complain because that same imagination fuels creativity and empathy.
5. Finder of What was Never Lost:
This is when my phone vibrates in my pocket while I’m searching the house for it. I start to question my sanity, but I think this is more an attention problem than absent-mindedness. Often what we’re looking for is already within our reach.
In another way, we often spend time looking for the extraordinary that we nearly overlook the ordinary kindnesses waiting for us.
What does it all mean?
We don’t need capes or x-ray vision. Most of us have plenty of oddly specific superpowers, the kind that make us forgetful, resilient, funny, and, if we’re lucky, a little bit like Serenity.
Some of these might sound familiar if you have ADHD or anxiety. They do for me! Or they may be simply part of being wonderfully, imperfectly human.
Your turn: What are your oddly specific, quirky superpowers?
Thank you for visiting!
My upcoming novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments, is about an anxious overthinker whose fixation on a stranger pulls her straight into chaos, heartbreak, and the inconvenient unraveling of her carefully constructed life.
Serenity, the not-so-serene overthinker, has many questionable and solid superpowers! If you’ve ever wondered if your instruction manual for life was missing pages, Serenity might make you feel less alone.
Preorder Love and Other Incurable Ailments.