Doing the Best I Can to Fit In

Damita Jo Wilder
Damita Jo Wilder
By Damita Jo Wilder

My sleep was a struggle one night as my dream sent a message.

I felt the message of my dream was for myself and others, so I want to share it with you.

In my dream, I was walking in an area once known as Southside. The streets were crowed with the activities of the past; children playing, adults sitting on porches, people shopping at local stores, and of course, people enjoying themselves at Six Points Drive-In. For me, the dream allowed me to enjoying my neighborhood as it once was. Then something very strange occurred. I saw Superman. Yes, Superman walking in my neighborhood – with Superwoman!

It was then I felt it necessary to ask what they were doing in the neighborhood.

Superman looked me in the eyes and said, “Just doing the best I can, trying to fit in. Superwoman and I have plans to build a ship to return home, because we never really fit in here.”

“Superman, your planet has been destroyed,” I said, “and there’s no home to go back to, there’s nothing left of what you remembered. I don’t understand, why are you just doing the best you can, trying to fit in? Superman, stop trying to fit in and just be who you are. We need you to be who you are!”

I’ll never forget the sad look upon his face as he acknowledged that yes, his planet was gone, destroyed – and there was no home to go back to.

Black Asheville remembers the “planets” we were born on. Southside, East End, Stump Town, Northside, Lee Walker Heights, Hillcrest, Shiloh, West-Asheville. The list goes on and on. It saddens many of us, like it did Superman, that our planet (our sense of belonging) has been destroyed. And there is no “home” to go back to.

Maybe, just maybe, we are to do as instructed in Jeremiah 29: “Marry, build homes, start businesses, and prosper in the ‘Land of our Captivity.’”

Maybe, just maybe, like Superman and Superwoman, we were never created to just fit in and do the best we can! Like Superman and Superwoman, we have been created to see the unseen, be stronger, more creative, and use our intelligence.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to re-adjust our frequency and listen to the sound coming from our destroyed planet.

Just for a season we have been disabled by the effects of Kryptonite, or whatever our Kryptonite is. But, just like Superman would bath himself in the sun to regain his strength, maybe, just maybe, we too must allow time (in the Son) to be strengthened again.

Maybe, just maybe, it is time to stop trying to do the best we can…. trying to fit in!