Self-assured people

   About a month and a half ago, for Presidents Day weekend, Fernanda and I took a trip up north to the Russian River area. On the first morning, we took a short drive into Guerneville from the town of Monte Rio, where we stayed in a sweet, small bed and breakfast called the Highland Dell Lodge.
   The four mile trip to Guerneville was taken with the express desire to eat lunch at a place that we had been to previously, called the Big Bottom Market. We had had really nice experiences there on two previous occasions, enjoying both the healthful food and kind staff, and were looking forward to this visit, too.
   After parking the car, we could see that it was much more crowded than we remembered it being, but were able to procure a table, and ordered our food and coffees. As we waited, we witnessed a constant parade of mostly young, fashion conscious people that seemed ridiculous in this rural environment. Though the workers in the place were themselves young and perhaps a bit hip, they were not like these people in their attitude; they seemed to care more about where they were than how they looked.
   At a table near us were a group of young families, all appearing to me to be confident in themselves, and I wondered, as I do at times, how people like that live and view the world and their own lives, as theirs seems so different from mine. They seem like they either know what they are doing in life or will be able to figure it out rather easily as they go along. Of course, I don't really know what living is like for them at all, but that's just how it seemed to me.
   On the same trip we also had coffee and baked goods at a place called Bia Cafe, located in Monte Rio, which was much less crowded, and had an extremely outgoing proprietor and decidedly less-than-hip clientele. It was much more to our liking. The owner was middle aged, appeared down-to-earth, and was certainly vivacious.
   Then, at some point during a congenially spirited conversation with one of her regular customers, she said proudly, "honey, you're never gonna' meet another me!"
   Although Fernanda and I certainly found this woman a lot more likable than the hip youngsters in the Guerneville place, it was her self-assured, confident attitude which took me back a bit as I thought about it later. Although I do believe that everyone is to some extent distinctive, I find the idea of people being so confident in their uniqueness a bit cocky and unreal. For me, freedom often lies in the  betweens, doubts and contradictions in the people and things in the world, because it is here that I am allowed  to join the millieu. Like a room, I can only enter where there is an opening.
   Although I myself am often less than self-assured, I don't think that it is this fact which solely determines my mistrust of the confident; I believe that my feelings of fallability, held so closely, keeps me in constant touch with my own humanity, which will always be imperfect. I don't always like how it can often foster so much insecurity within me, but when I think about, it makes me proud in some way.