Hemmed Pants



  
 To make a difference in a life is a very special thing...
 I sit here at my desk, thinking about life and its purpose, and all and I want to do is go to bed... and I really need to, because I have a very early meeting with a very important person at 8 am, and it's an hour drive for me...

But I cannot sleep. I know this, as I sit here, because my mind is awake... Too awake...

I have to feed animals before I leave, and it’s probably gonna be dark, but I don’t care because sometimes you just have to live in the moment, even if that moment is a dream or boring or totally uneventful.

I had an inspiring talk with one of my kids today. He’s not really my kid, but he’s my kid. Only a martial artist or a teacher-mentor would really understand what I am saying. He is a young man who came to me as a boy at age 13 with a dream, and I have helped him attain part of that dream by being his instructor in parts of life, and he did the work to obtain his Black Belt.

We have come full circle. Now, he is a man who has gotten a girl pregnant, given a baby up for adoption, been through countless jobs trying to figure out who he is and what he wants to do in life... and I have been there for him and he for me, because us grown up people have shit happen to them too. Just because we are old and idolized and role models does not mean we are perfect or unreal.

So this boy of mine I love and he loves me in a very family way, we have dreams and we know that even if things don’t work out in our silly business ventures, or our dreams of what we would really love to do in 2005, he will still call me and inspire me and I him. We are family, and family isn’t always who is your daddy...

I was sitting in the hallway of a very nice hotel last October at a national tournament, and none of us wanted to go to bed, because we knew we wouldn’t hang out for a while again. We all just knew that, and it was comfortable. We talked about life. One of the things that came up was that it is not about teaching karate or about doing the moves... and I listened to this very influential, handsome man, a fighting legend in his own time, telling me exactly what I already knew. It confirmed more of MY purpose in life: to answer that phone at 2 in the morning because a kid is going through his parents' divorce. Or I trust a kid enough to get his car out of hock so he can go to work, knowing it will take him 2 years to pay me back. Or pleading with a 14 year old, very troubled girl to please tell me why she is hurting herself so I can HELP her somehow, some way.

To make a difference in a life is a very special thing, even if it is one little thing, like offering to hem a kid's gi pants... because when that kid was 5 years older, and I was near tears in a class because my husband left me, that kid wrote me a letter, telling me how much he appreciated me, and my purpose in life, and the impact that one little thing had on him -- that I never thought would have come up 5 years later. When it did, it made me cry for a long time, because at that minute in time I really needed to know that someone, somewhere loved me, and he told me that because I hemmed his pants. Now, is that life, or is that teaching karate?

We are martial artists because of the magical, wondrous things that happen to us. Those of us who are fortunate enough to bring that to others are blessed. Just another night in the life of a GURLFYTR. Guess I'd better go to bed pretty soon or that important person is gonna have to feed me a lot of coffee.

marcia@GurlFytrz.com