The people we are when we begin a relationship are not the ones we become within it.
I have, since I was a little girl, always thought of myself as somewhat of a superhero. I was an only child who wiled away Saturdays and summer vacations exploring the breadth, depth and width of my own imagination. Often with a pillow case tied around my neck, pretending to “fly” around the backyard.
My mother raised me with the instilled knowledge that I was capable of anything and everything. She said that the only reason people don’t do amazing things is because they fail to believe they can. And that I should never make that mistake myself.
To the young brain encased in that chaos of white-blond ringlets, being able to do pretty much anything equaled having super powers.
Mum once bought me white patent leather go-go boots to wear with some hideous dress she was determined to put me in for one of the High Holidays and I promptly found a magic marker and attempted to color them black.
Because all the female superheros I knew of had black boots.
My reward was a pair of truly crappy looking boots and a vigorous spanking. For a woman with one good arm, let me tell you, she sure could dish out one hell of a punishment.
Anyway, back then in the realm of my own mind I was Super. And now in my forty-something mind I am still. I have Super Powers. Sometimes I use them for good. Sometimes I don’t ; )
I have always thought of the men in my life as Phone Booths. Remember how Clark Kent used to dash into the phone booth and Superman would come out?
Men are my Phone Booths.
Usually what happens is, a strong, feisty, blazingly empowered, open hearted woman full of verve and hope goes in and after time passes, a lesser, dimmer version of that woman steps out, tired, bewildered and nursing a broken heart.
Once or twice that strong, feisty, blazingly empowered, open hearted woman has gone in and the woman who emerged was a hollow, wounded, lost, broken soul.
Up until now, the Phone Booths have drained my power. I went in Super. I came out small.
Fortunately, the effects were never permanent and I was back to full power before too long. I did, however, come to be very leery of Phone Booths nonetheless.
This time though….this Phone Booth is different.
I went in a woman who guarded her heart the way one would cradle and protect a broken arm that had just come out of a cast.
I went in a woman who thought love was for other people now, not her.
I went in a woman who saw in neutral colors and who clung to symmetry and perfectionism as if they were armor.
I went in a woman who had begun to buy in to the notion that perhaps she was in fact not enough.
But this man is more than a mere Phone Booth; he is a Hero himself. Swooping down from the sky (literally) and saving lives with his strong, steady hands. He may not have a cape, but he does have a sexy green flight suit.
And let’s face it, helicopter rotors and capes don’t really play well together anyway, so…
Seriously though, I am not the same woman who began this relationship. Not even close.
Perhaps in his safe, sure embrace I am able to shed the layers of street clothes that life has shucked upon my shoulders over the years and bare the glittering, hot pink “S” on my chest once and for all. Or perhaps it is his own Super Heroic nature that nurtures, and calls to, my own.
I am now a woman with a gleam in her eyes. Just like the one I had when I was tearing around my back yard with a pillow case tied around my neck and my arms outstretched like wings.
I am now a woman whose heart is so open and full of love that sometimes I’m overwhelmed with it to the point of tears.
I am now a woman who craves bright color and embraces the imperfect, the unfinished and the ever changing.
I am now a woman who will never EVER give so much as one synaptic firing to the thought that I am not enough again. Because I am. More than enough actually.
In this Phone Booth, I become Super Zoe.
Like I told you. He saves people.
He saved me.
the zeitgeist of zoe 
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