Superpower and Kryptonite

Not all butterflies are born perfect. Nine Monarch butterflies “hatched” in my atrium.  This one is a surprise; a butterfly from a well-hidden chrysalis.  The butterfly is showing its best side in this photo. In reality its body is too thin, the body and wings look like they’ve been sprinkled with baking soda, and one wing is deformed. It gets around, but it can’t fly. Yet it is no less beautiful than the others.

I didn’t want the butterfly to suffer. I wanted to give the butterfly its best chance of survival.  I wanted to hasten its death or save it. But I didn’t do either.

I just finished an art journaling eCourse called The Gifts of Imperfection. In one of the lessons I had to identify my “superpower” and my “kryptonite”, the idea being that the best things about us are also the hardest; what we are good at can also trip us up. One of my superpowers is critical thinking, a multifaceted power that includes problem solving. Hope and optimism are my other two superpowers.  My kryptonite is this – I feel that discomfort, conflict and pain are problems to be solved. I shut down and get anxious when I cannot solve a problem or make a troubled situation better.

This butterfly exemplifies my kryptonite, as do all the starving caterpillars I had when I ran out of Milkweed this spring. But am I anxious for the sake of the butterfly, for the struggle I imagine but don’t really know the butterfly is having? Or am I anxious for the sake of my own anxiety, over wanting to do the right thing as defined by other butterfly enthusiasts and entomologists or for being judged by a friend when I share the story? How cruel to euthanize the butterfly, how cruel to let it live.

The thing is, the butterfly doesn’t expect me to save it.  I can’t solve all the problems of the world; and in fact many problems are not mine to solve. I have to accept that while there may be a fitting ending, it may not meet my definition of a happy ending. In this case death may be natures’ way of adjusting itself to the Milkweed shortage.

I can’t tell you what happened. The next day I left on a business trip and when I returned there was no sign of the butterfly. So I choose to believe that despite its imperfections it survived.