I’m pretty certain I have always had a problem with limits, with not knowing whether I’ve gone too far or not far enough.  Sometimes I seem to give up so easily, stepping down before I’ve really attempted something of my skill level. Take for example the all school spelling bee.  I think it was forth or fifth grade. Each grade had their own spelling bee and the winners went on to participate in an all school spelling bee held in the church (oh catholic grade schools so chaste!).   I was terrified to participate in the grade spelling bee. We all stood and those who misspelled would sit at their desks until the last student standing, who would be our class representative.  Now I tended to have a keener eye/mind for spelling (thanks parents for reading to me as a kid! thanks library! thanks young adult books!), but I was absolutely terrified of standing in front of the whole school and possibly misspelling a word.  It wasn’t the crowd so much as the pressure of living down a public mistake (like vomiting at school, falling in my college’s court yard, standing on the subway with a huge hole in the ass of my dress…all, sadly, true). So I wussed out and as fewer people were left standing I got more nervous, and I knew I had to get out of there. ‘Courteous.’ I can still remember the word I fake misspelled. I breathed a sigh of relief when I was asked to take my seat, and my competitor (a rather awkward, shy boy with a super competitive streak particularly with me and my GPA until 8th grade) went on to participate in the all school spelling bee. I don’t remember what happened or much of the bee other than I was content to sit and not pay attention in church.

Now I feel like I really didn’t push it.  Moments like that as well as all the times I was tempted to do something frowned upon, I wish I had pushed it more.

On the other hand, sometimes I don’t know when to stop pushing. I come from a family where excessive force comes rather naturally, particularly with putting in nails or screws, tightening lids and bolts, scrubbing your skin too hard. But I am also known to have a rather stubborn side to me.  No, I do not!  Anyway, sometimes I seem to be unable to tell when I’ve reached my limit. This comes particularly with physical things. Like when participating in the elementary school Presidential Physical fitness (phitness!) competitions (the nation had prescribed numbers for events that elementary school kids were advised to meet. Each year we went through the events dreading the numbers and not quite making it into the top tier for girls in grade six, or seven or eight etc).  Now I was about average at everything, never able to reach the Presidential scores except in the long stretch (the measurement of your fingertips past your toes while sitting with your legs in front of you).  It seemed so easy to stretch a bunch before hand and quickly thrust my fingers past my toes to hold for two seconds.  I got Presidential. The only event I ever did. Looking back on it I’m sure I was pretty close to pulling a muscle more than half of the time with all the lunging and jerking around.

So I come to today. Today I am afraid I will give up if I don’t go for a run to keep training for a 5k. Technically, I know i won’t give up because I’ve been somewhat interested in running since May. But there is a part of me that feels like I’m not putting in enough effort, not pushing hard enough. That part of me doesn’t take into consideration that I’ve run somewhat intensely the two days prior and DID push myself to bike the ten or so miles home from work tonight.

How much is enough? How much is too much?

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10/27/09: 1. I woke myself up with my own laughter. 2. salad 3. strength 4. Soul Night/Sarah 5. Options