It is no secret that I am infatuated with superheroes. I take a particular liking in Spider-Man and, in my mind, I exist as Peter Parker. I am the overly-nice, mostly-awkward guy who lives a kick-ass second life as a superhero who saves the world from human reptiles and flying goblins. I will even admit that, when no one’s looking, I sometimes pull the hero out of my head and flick my wrists to send a non-existent line of web spiraling at the TV screen.

I’ve never actually wondered why I fancy the web-slinger so much, so I figured it was time to decipher my super-sized love story.

I remember Stan Lee, co-creator of the Spider-Man comic books, stating in a DVD extra that Peter Parker was every geeky awkward kid, and Spider-Man was the hero every kid could escape into. I guess Mr. Lee is right. I’m a kid. I’m a mess of a kid, actually, who’s dealing with the typical melodramatic angst that teenage-adult life carries. 

I was in love with a girl who ripped my heart into a million pieces and giggled as she threw the shreds in my face. I can’t seem to shake myself of the traits that plague me, and I constantly find myself tripping over the words that seemed to fit so perfectly together in my mind.     

Peter Parker’s the same kid, in many ways, except he loves science and I wish the subject was never included in a curriculum. He gets the chance to be someone better, someone greater, than just the geeky, awkward kid he is. His life is a crazy, epic mess of responsibility and heroism and love and action. 

At the end of the day, don’t we all wish to be heroes? Whether that means helping a struggling grandmother carry groceries to her car or miraculously catching a man who’s slipped off the roof of a 10-story building? There’s something that can only be described as spectacular about saving the day.     

The superhero life is one I will never live, because radioactive spiders that have the ability to alter DNA do not exist, and there are no known records of human reptiles and flying goblins wreaking havoc in New York City -- yet. I am ordinary. My problems, my struggles, my life -- it’s all just ordinary. But, perhaps, I don’t have to look too far for my wish to come true.      

Enter the wisdom of Peter Parker’s, Aunt May, in Spider-Man 2: “I believe there’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most.”     

May Parker is right: there is a hero in all of us. Life is full of hardship and decisions that sometimes require us to don our tights and a red mask. It is overcoming those obstacles that proves our strength. Above all, we have the ability to make a difference, even if that difference affects just one and not a million.

Yes, I may be ordinary, but that doesn't mean I'm not my own kind of hero.