Always Be the Superhero Pork Chop!

Sometimes in life, we are often told we're not good enough, or our best efforts don't quite hit the mark and we hold those negative comments or opinions closer to our hearts than we should. We carry them with us like shrapnel in our skin, painful wounds that become a part of us. I have certainly experienced such things while growing up and I also know that many others have as well. You are not alone; we have all been there.

Once in middle school I wrote a short comedy, I couldn't have been more than eleven years old at the time. Being the class clown there were certain expectations of me and I was determined to come through for my classmates. The story was a little weird no doubt, the main character being a Superhero Pork Chop, but I've never been much of a conventional writer. The teacher then told us that we had to read these gems in front of the class. So, I did. I told that story as if it were a scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. God bless her soul, my best friend Jamie roared in hysterics’ front row center. Till this day she brings up that dear pork chop, it’s kind of a hard story to forget. She understood my sense of humor and not everyone does.

Her enthusiasm didn't help because I never got much past the first few paragraphs without joining in on the laughter. I love to laugh and I had a kickass story. Alas, my story was deemed too silly and the teacher sent me back to my desk. Had we not been eleven at the time I imagine there would have been a lot of high-fives and fist pumping over that story. Instead, I hurried back to my seat avoiding eye contact with Jamie for fear more laughter would further enrage our humorless teacher.

The story rocked. How did we know this? Cause no one writes stories about superhero pork chops; it's an untapped market. Had I pursued it, I would probably own the royalties to the action figures by now. However, after that, I didn't write anymore. Whether or not the two are connected is hard to say. All I know is that it took a long time for me to start writing again. Which is hard to believe considering how I write full-time now as a career. I only kept journals all those years, amassing a lifetime full of memories my friends would kill to get their hands on. That kind of fear also prevented me from writing my own story, until today of course. It took me a few years, but I finally decided that I deserved everything that I had dreamed about from the time that I was young. I deserve the fame and fortune that my wit brings me. So, I put pen to paper and wrote something tragic but also something that may have you laughing just like that Superhero Pork Chop. And I can’t wait to share it with the world.

My point here isn't that there should be a written word on pork chops because that's debatable. My point here is that if you believe in something, give it wings and let it fly. Create without borders. Believe in yourself and never let someone else tell you that you're not everything you envisioned. Because you are!