can i do it? yes - i think so - maybe - i hope....

When I was younger, I took a couple years of Kempo Karate. I enjoyed it quite a bit and actually tested up a couple belts. After studying less than a year, I was with my family (my mom, great uncle, great aunt, aunt) in an Asian Marketplace in a not-so-great part of town. As we were outside eating, I noticed a couple of young men kicking another young man who was laying fetal position on the ground. I watched this for a couple minutes, thinking that surely they would either stop or someone more capable than I (i.e. a big strong man) would intervene shortly. Neither happened.

Now keep in mind that this was in gang-land. And that I was not armed in any way other than my false-sense of being capable of handling this scenario with my not exactly black belt level of martial arts training.

I clearly did not keep any of the above in mind as I found myself on my feet and moving towards the scene with a bravado fueled by the indignation that I felt at it not being a fair fight (I mean c'mon, literally kicking a man when he's down?) and anger that nobody was moving in to stop them. As I strode forward to put myself between the two young men and the man laying on the ground and started berating them for doing this in the open where there were families and children in plain view, it started dawning on me what a stupid stupid position I had put myself in. What if they had a gun or a knife and a healthy dose of who-gives-a-sh*t attitude to go with it?

Luckily for me, they were so dumbfounded that a skinny little Asian girl was bold enough to interfer that it rendered them temporarily non-aggressive. But not entirely speechless. The main aggressor managed to tell me that they were only paying the guy back for shooting his brother. Ummmm. Hm. What does one say to that? I could only think to tell them that that's was their business but this was not the place to conduct it.

By this time other people (ahem, those capable men I was looking for earlier) found their backbone and started towards our little group and somehow we managed to convince the 2 men to go away while another bystander started to help the victim to his feet and I walked away on not quite steady knees.

Now, what does that have to do with taking my kids to Costco you ask? Afterwards I reflected that if I had not had that little bit of martial arts training I might not have been brave (stupid?) enough to put myself in that situation. It was amazing how I thought that I could handle two clearly pissed off young gangsters (assuming) just with my attitude and maybe a year's worth of karate exercises. I had never been in a real fight in my life. It clearly gave me a possible false sense of security about what I was able to do. I assume it was a false sense because I'll obviously never know if I could have handled it had they turned aggressive towards me.

Taking the kids to the amusement park a couple weekends ago was a huge breakthrough for me. I actually braved taking them to Costco this past weekend. And I actually survived to talk about it! Of course all those food tasting stands in every aisle was a Godsend. I think that was the only thing that kept M occupied in the cart instead of constantly demanding to be put down.

Yay for me!

But now I have this sense that, now I have broken that barrier, the world is my oyster and I can do all sorts of things with two kids in tow! Is this a false sense of my own abilities? I guess only time will tell. Hopefully this feeling of being invincible will not lead to me situations quite as dangerous as the gangland incident....

i wanna talk about me

Does constant introspection make me self-absorbed? I want to say no, since I certainly don't want to be self-absorbed, and the introspection is suppose to help me become who I want to be. But whenever I start asking someone "So do I......?", or "So am I....?" I think I hear a little sigh in my head and I am not entirely sure that it's not the person I'm talking to projecting a mental "Oh, here she goes again talking about her."

My husband always asks "Why do you ask me all the time?". My answer of course is that "Why, I want to make sure I'm being the best person/wife I can be" with a smile on my face. In my head I am growling, "You are complaining that I'm asking if you're happy with me? Would you rather that I just don't care and go on with whatever I want whether you like it or not?"

Should I just stop asking him? Which would be more annoying?

My friends patiently answer my questions, while my insecure inner self is screaming "Stop talking about yourself! People are going to start avoiding hanging out with you!"

Am I annoying? Is my constant introspection just a neurosis that is cleverly disguised as an attempt at self-improvement? Should I stop asking you now?