Between Hero and Grounded
Sometimes, I feel uncertain about my art, my poetry — about the impact I leave. I imagine I’m not alone in that wondering.
But the response to last month’s blog quieted that uncertainty. The calls. The text messages. The emails. The conversations about vulnerability and love. So many of you shared how it encouraged you to sit with your own fears — the ones shaped by wounds and experience. Or simply to offer love more intentionally.
In one conversation, a friend told me he was in the same season — learning to meet his fears rather than run from them. For the first time in a long while, I felt seen. Not for what I create — but for where I stand in becoming. Community has a way of holding a mirror steady.
Those conversations reminded me of something from my mid-to-late teens.
As the eldest of eight, I didn’t think I tested boundaries more than the average teenager. I had my moods. My sharp tongue. I kicked my siblings out of my room. Refused to take them to the mall. Punished them for wearing my clothes and taking my CDs without asking. It all felt normal.
What I didn’t realize was that someone was watching.
One afternoon, my mom handed me a paper my brother Mykel had written for school. He had to write about his heroes. My mom wasn’t sentimental about saving schoolwork — with eight kids, you can imagine — but this one she kept.
Mykel wrote about Michael Jordan.
Kobe Bryant.
And me.
As I read his words — how he admired me, how he looked up to me — my heart broke and healed in the same breath.
When I finished, my mom looked at me and said, “You never know how others may see you.”
That sentence humbled my moody teenage heart.
I had no idea that beyond my impatience and sharp edges, he saw something worthy of admiration. Something steady. Something heroic. It was the first time I understood that how I show up matters — not just for others, but for myself.
And maybe that is the reminder again now.
We rarely see ourselves the way others do. We measure impact in applause. In numbers. In immediate feedback. But sometimes the impact is quieter. Sometimes it’s a younger sibling writing your name next to legends. Sometimes it’s a friend saying, “I’m there too.”
Maybe we are all more influential than we realize — even in our in-between seasons.
This year may be about releasing what I resist.
But it is equally about staying grounded in what has always held me.
Impact is not something I chase.
It is something I carry — by showing up well.
For myself.
And for others.
For the hero and the human in all of us—
may we remember
that how we show up
matters.
And may we stay grounded enough
to carry it well.
Grounded
Strength reverberating—
above the porous
remembrance
of treads
and foundation.
Seeping into versions
of growth,
anchored in being
while offering
gestures—
from the heart.
Quietly trusting admiration,
still acknowledging
the awe,
present with the rumble–
while still standing
tall.
— James Allen, 2026