In Case You Wonder If You Inspire

The worst part of the after-Thanksgiving run is that very first mile. It lingers there, taking its time, making you think it will never arrive, no matter how deeply you breathe or how high you hold your head or what kind of music you're listening to.

At the gym on Friday, I chose thirty minutes on the treadmill. And two minutes in, I started negotiating with myself.

"It's been so long since you've done this, you should probably just run a mile. Don't overdo it."

I looked out the window in front of me. I could see the neighborhood next to the gym. I breathed deep and checked the monitor. Just ten seconds had passed. I reached for the iPod strapped to my arm and turned up the volume just a tad. David Crowder. Great running music.

"Really. You don't need to run too much longer. You don't want to hurt yourself."

My eyes scanned the road that led from the gym to the mall. The road was nearly empty. In the neighborhood below, an American flag flew on a flagpole just above a flag for the local University's football team. I checked the monitor again.

"Okay," I said to myself. "See how you feel at the end of the first mile." Just then, a young girl walked out of one of the houses below. She was followed by a man who might have been her dad. She wore a baseball mitt on her left hand and with her right hand, she tossed a softball in the air. Catching the softball solidly in the mitt, she stepped back from the man who turned to face her, and with a roundhouse motion she sailed that ball through the air.

"Wow!" I thought to myself. "That was fast!"

The man threw the ball back to that girl and she caught it squarely in her mitt. And threw it right back. "Accurate," I thought.

The man held on to the ball and waved the girl back. She stepped back. Giant steps. And the man threw the ball back to her. She reached to her left and caught that ball right where the mitt formed a pocket in her hand. Without missing a beat, she threw the ball right back.

The man tested her. He threw the ball high in the air, he threw it fast, he lobbed grounders at her. She reached and crouched and stretched and dropped to the ground with her knees together. And the thing that caught my eye was her confidence.

Have you seen that before? I watched that girl throwing and catching and reaching and dropping, and she reminded me of you. She reminded me of the way you write your words and tell your story and manage your household and love on your children and make your man feel like he's the best thing since sliced bread.

"Hey, you don't need to keep running." But my eyes were on the girl with the softball and the argument was falling on deaf ears. I had hit my stride. The girl with the mitt on her hand was cheering me on.

That's what you do for me. You cheer me on. Without even knowing it. You do the things you love to do and - from a distance - you catch my eye, when I'm right in the middle of my very first mile. You make the you-can't-do-that arguments fall on deaf ears, and before I know it, I've gone further and faster and better than I ever imagined I could.

The treadmill started a cool down on its own and I slowed to a jog. I checked the monitor. "Thirty minutes? Wow, time sure does fly."

In the yard below, the girl and the man were finishing up. He threw the ball one last time. It sailed a slow, high arc through the air and she stood her ground and kept looking up - following that ball until it landed right in the pocket of that baseball glove.

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Linking up with Michelle and Jen and my friend Laura, who's just returned from the beach.
Click over and be inspired!