" ... and NOBODY tells me what I can or can't do!" (Skylar Storm aka Connecticut Valentine)

I've been thinking about how I cope with loss in my life.

Have you ever lost something in your life that you truly cherished?   I probably shouldn't even have to ask that.

Most of us have, at some point in our lives.  But, of course, not all losses are the same, and not all of them have the same impact on us.

Sometimes, a loss can be trivial, inconsequential, a matter of happenstance.  Such losses hold no importance to us.  They simply happen, and we move on.

But not all losses are like that.

Some losses hurt ... truly, and painfully.

Because sometimes, these losses are personal.  

In fact, I think that's what really makes the worst kinds of losses truly hurt the most ...

... because, when we suffer these kinds of losses, we also feel like we've somehow lost pieces of ourselves.

It's been the case in my own life.  Because I've suffered a lot of losses.  And a lot of them were personal.  And a lot of those losses have really, really hurt me.

And, when I've hurt like that in my life, I've often needed outside help to get to where I can feel better.  In times like that, I've needed more than just outside help, in fact.  I've needed heroes.

And, sometimes, in coping with the toughest losses ... I've needed the help of what people refer to as super-heroes.

And I don't mean the kind of help super-heroes offer in the pages of comic books.

And I don't mean a rescue from a fire or flood, or protection against a rampaging robot from outer-space.

But, every day, super-heroes help me, nonetheless.  It's just a matter of how they help me that some people might never understand.

Because, for some people, super-heroes simply represent nothing more than escapism - the notion of getting away from real-world problems by reading about adventurous people who succeed in achieving easy-to-comprehend goals in simplistic narratives.

But super-heroes, for me, aren't at all about that kind of escape from one's problems.

For me, super-heroes are important because of what they teach me, and the examples that they set.

Because. even though super-heroes are fictional, they can - when their stories are crafted with wisdom and care - tell us real truths.

They can show us, despite their fantastical worlds, what kinds of people we can be in real life, if we're willing to try; if we're willing to aspire.

And I can think of no better way to illustrate this idea of teaching by example than by writing here about a super-hero called Skylar Storm.

Skylar Storm, for the uninitiated, is a character who appears on the Disney XD television series Mighty Med.  

The series centers around a pair of former slackers named Kaz and Oliver.  The two have an encyclopedic knowledge of fantasy and science-fiction, having spent much of their lives reading comic books.  However, in the world of Mighty Med, it turns out that those super-heroes are real - and that comic books chronicle their actual exploits.  Because of all their accumulated knowledge, Kaz and Oliver wind up as doctors at a secret hospital where heroes go to recover from the wear and tear of their exploits.

And one such hero is Skylar Storm.

I should warn that at this point I'm going to be getting into some heavy spoilers about the show.

Skylar hails from the planet Caldera, and is one of the most fearless and courageous super-heroes in the universe of Mighty Med.    We find out over the course of the first season of the show that Caldera is a tough and forbidding planet of treacherous terrain and active volcanos.  Also, we  discover that people on Caldera don't have families as we understand them on Earth.  Instead, people from Caldera are born out of pods, in a fashion that is described in a way that seems similar to that which is portrayed in the opening scenes depicting Krypton in Man of Steel.  And violence is commonplace on Caldera.  A kick to the head is the accepted societal response in the rejection of a marriage proposal, for instance.  

So it's no surprise that Skylar is an expert in fighting gymnastics and hand-to-hand combat.

In addition, Calderans can have super-powers.  Skylar, at the peak of her abilities, is described to have 24 different super-human abilities, including x-ray vision and the ability to create interdimensional portals that allow her make the millions-of-light-years journey from Caldera to Earth and back again.

But, as the story of Mighty Med begins, Skylar isn't at the peak of her abilities. 

You see, in the first episode of the series, we are told that Skylar had a particularly grim encounter with a super-villain called The Annihilator.

The Annihilator, it turns out, has robbed Skylar of all of her super-powers - all 24 of them.

And no one has the slightest idea of how to restore those powers to Skylar.

Which means that, as far as the majority of the staff of Mighty Med are concerned, Skylar can't be a super-hero any more.

She can't make objects explode with her touch any more.  She can't fly any more.  She can't even lift heavy objects any more.

And - worse - she is stuck on Earth, and can't return to Caldera.  

But that doesn't stop the odd Calederan from coming to see her.

That odd Calderan would be Experion, a former best friend of Skylar Storm's ...who, of course, you know, turns out to totally betray her and has become a super-villain in Skylar's time away from Caldera.  So there's that.  So, yeah - the show makes it pretty clear that Skylar hasn't exactly had the best of years over the course of Mighty Med's first season.

So ... let's review:  her powers stolen, she's consigned to life at a hospital on an alien world, is betrayed by her former best friend, and finds herself totally isolated from her original home.  So, you might imagine that Skylar would be pretty depressed about everything that's happened to her.

Except, here's the thing - she totally isn't.

Because, instead of being angry or bitter or vindictive about her situation - Skylar ... makes the best of it.

Yep.

After all that, she makes the best of it.

She befriends Oliver (second from left in the image above), Kaz (third from left) and even - to a lesser degree - Alan Diaz (far right), at the hospital.  

Oliver, for his part, has had a lifelong crush on the Skylar Storm of the comic books, and - finding out that she's real - vows to use his super-hero medical expertise to find a cure to her power-loss.  But, given Oliver's geeky behavior most of the time, she isn't holding out much hope.

And Skylar also takes her time confined to Mighty Med to better get to know the super-heroes of Earth.  

Because what could simply be a dire sentence of powerless imprisonment is seen, in many ways, by Skylar as an opportunity to find out new things and tread new ground.  

She finds a path toward appreciation of her situation, instead of resentment.

Because that's what Skylar is like.

Examples of this run throughout the series, and appear in every episode in which Skylar is present.

Another example would be that even though Skylar is incredibly intelligent and gifted, she decides to attend regular human - or "normo," as the super-heroes call it -  school with Kaz and Oliver.  

Bored with feeling sorry for herself, and eager to be even more involved in understanding life on Earth, she joins the regular everyday world, too, affecting the civilian identity of Connecticut Valentine.

And, rather than simply a super-hero trope that is being gently satirized by Mighty Med, this element of the character makes her incredibly heroic to me.

And it's one of the only times when I've seen the idea of a hero adopting a civilian identity heroic in and of itself.

Because, to me, Skylar's being Connie is a step she's taking to both heal and better herself.

Because Skylar clearly sees new experiences that might be unpleasant as opportunities for learning.

And that's so admirable to me.

Because I have such a hard time with that - though, to be fair, so too does Skylar from time to time.

You probably would, too, if you went to school with Kaz and Oliver.

Nevertheless, though - and even with her occasional rageful flare-ups - Skylar's ability to take bad situations and turn them around into opportunities to learn and improve herself inspires me beyond belief.   

And I needed that kind of inspiration in my own life when I was in school, and I didn't have it.  And I'm glad that kids watching Mighty Med have Skylar's decision to become Connecticut as an example of this to hold on to when times get tough - as they surely do in school for almost every kid - in their own lives in the real world.

Of course, it wouldn't work if there weren't skilled people writing, directing and crafting the show. And it wouldn't work even then, without a very talented actress to portray Skylar.  And actress Paris MaryJo Berelc is excellent in the way she imbues Skylar with so many admirable qualities throughout the course of the show, qualities that come through both in her handling of the dialogue she is given and in non-verbal elements that truly bring these admirable qualities of her character to life.

Because, without all these talents working together to create the character of Skylar Storm, she wouldn't seem so vividly heroic to me, wouldn't seem like the kind of super-hero who inspires me to be a better person in the real world.

And make no mistake - whether she's acting as Connecticut or as Skylar, she's still a super-hero in the world of Mighty Med.

She really is.  And I mean that in a literal sense in the story of the show, too.

Even though her 24 powers have been taken away from her, Skylar looks not to what she's lost but to the skills she has and keeps fighting as a super-hero.

And that's key to the essence of why she's such a hero to me, right there.

Because it is, in its own way, "easy" to be a super-hero if you've got 24 super-powers that include a healing factor that brings you back to life even if you're beheaded.  It's "easy" to stand up for what you believe in when you can control galactic forces and there's little-to-no threat to your physical (or emotional) well-being.

But to fight on after losing all those powers?  To stand up for what you believe in, knowing that doing so could get you destroyed at any moment?

That's what being a super-hero is all about, to me.  And that's what Skylar does, without 24 amazing super-powers to back up her bravery.  She does it because it's right, and because it's needed, and because it's why she's here on Earth.

And, with Skylar inspiring me, I'm able to better realize that it's pretty much why we're all here on Earth.

We can all be heroes, no matter if we have powers or not.  And it doesn't matter whether you're wearing a costume or the clothes you wear to school.  Because Skylar shows me that we don't have to listen when people tell us what we can or can't do, and that we're not the product of our own limitations, or the limitations foisted upon us by other people.

Skylar shows us that we're all, at any given moment, really the result of all our current aspirations, which can only be limited by how much we have faith in ourselves to accomplish what we want to achieve in this world.  And that's so inspiring to me, because it reminds me not to be angry about what I've lost in life ... but, instead, to be thankful for what I have.

Because I have good friends.  And a good life.  And a good place to live with good people in and near it.  

I have my ability to write.  And my ability to feel.  And my ability to hope.

And having that hope is so important.

And it's not just having hope that things will get better if only things will somehow magically change.

It's having hope for what's right here in front of me, right now.  And appreciating those people and those elements of my life I mentioned earlier.

And it's about being grateful for them, like Skylar is.

And it's about realizing I need to be grateful even for my obligations, because it means there are people in the world I care about, who I know care about me.

It's realizing that when I have to struggle and have to work to get what I want out of life, I need to remember that not everyone gets that opportunity ... that not everyone even gets a chance to be even be close to having that opportunity in the first place.

And that some people don't even have anyone to care for or who care about them, and to appreciate that in life and to let people know about how much you appreciate the bonds you feel with them.

And that working for other people ... and saving people ... and even saving the people who save people ... isn't a burden.

It's a gift.  And it's a gift we all have, in our own capacity to be heroes, in whatever we do and however we strive and wherever we struggle.  And it's a gift that simply must be used.  Because we need to be out there saving each other whenever we can and however we can.

And that means that sometimes the strong and courageous girl can rescue the boy, instead of it always having to be the other way around like American society seems to so-often insist, and this is another element that inspires me about Skylar's character.

Because Skylar is brave like a hero should be brave, powers or no.  She's brave like a hero should be brave, and isn't reduced to being a damsel in distress even though her super-powers were taken from her.  Because she lives up to her true potential, which has nothing to do with her super-powers and everything to do with her belief in herself and her convictions about right and wrong.

Because doing anything less than that means not living up to ourselves, let alone living up to the amazing and incredible super-heroes we look up to as we try to make ourselves better.  And realizing that we are all amazing and incredible in our own unique ways as we strive to live up to our own potential in the real world.  And we shouldn't let anyone tell us what that can or can't be.

Because living up to our potential and our noblest aspirations in the real world?  Well, those are pretty much some of the most heroic things a person can do.