Women are awesome!!

Tonight, I am proud and I am humbled. This is a somewhat mushy post, so get your tissues or log off if you feel like it. I’ll lighten up again one day, I promise. But today…I mush!

Women are awesome. There is no tool available that can measure the depth of her soul or her ability to mother, to be a friend, a sister, a partner, an athlete, a mentor, a teacher, an example, and an inspiration to others.

This month I've witnessed the women I love accomplishing so much. From running their first 5k's, their first marathon, or training for an Ironman, to showing the equally phenomenal emotional strength and compassion it takes to mother a sick child through a lengthy illness.

There is the woman selling home baked cookies on the internet because cut-throat corporate America doesn't see her true value. And the woman taking a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel halfway across the country to learn an alternative healing method because she believes she can use it to heal her patients. One woman travels across continents to a disaster torn country to be with the man she loves, and another woman tentatively "puts herself out there" for the first time to try her luck at love, once again, in this crazy world. And these are just a few of the women I know. I have a feeling there are stories in each of you.

I am humbled in the presence of these (you) women, and "inspired" falls short as a word used to describe how I feel.

Women aren't amazing because they have any special powers. They aren't vixens or sirens. They don't need to use their sexuality to feel powerful (Tiger…Jesse, you feel me?). Real women just "are". Most women don’t even have the time or the impetus to think about “how powerful or awesome they are”. That kind of thinking isn’t conducive to their goals. They just do what needs to be done. There is no real ego involved in any of their accomplishments, just the desire to challenge themselves, to love, and of course, necessity.

Yeah, I hike up hills. Yeah, I’ve lost a few pounds and fit into a dress. But today I bought some new running shoes. Today I told the pregnant-mother-athlete-teacher-inspiration who also works at Fleet Feet that I want to run so badly….and I don’t know why I can’t stop trying. She got it. I didn’t need to explain.

Maybe it was all the women I saw at the Mermaid Run today. Nothing but women. Happy women. And for every woman struggling, and for every woman achieving her goals, there were a hundred women behind her – urging her to go on, or celebrating her success. Just as it is in real life.

Today, I saw a woman running with a baby in a stroller and a toddler, barely hanging on, under her arm…laughing at the ridiculousness of it all…as she crossed the finish line.

Women are amazing, that is for sure.