One of my dearest friends taught me a very valuable lesson on our run through the park this morning. As I began to list all of my hesitations about publishing my first post, she decided to dispense a few words of wisdom. She also unknowingly gave me a topic for my first post. So here goes:

“You know what?” she began, “When I was running cross country in high school, my teammates and I always thought that only the most elite runners could wear crop tops…so we never wore them,” she explained. Then one day the teammates got to thinking that –gosh darn it– they too were running fast enough and hard enough to don those esteemed crop tops if they wanted to. So, they did just that.

My friend was hoping that I would pick up on the fact that –sans the literal belly baring– this was basically the same story. She went on to remind me that there are a lot of people out there who write and post things on the internet and many of them aren’t all that great. But they do it anyway. They share their lives with the world and bare their most personal details for all to read- the good, the bad and the ugly. “Sometimes you just have to press the button and post it,” she urged. Maybe she had a point. As we reached the spot where we usually split off toward our respective sides of the city, she turned and yelled back to me, “HEY…put your crop top on today!”

Alright then. I’m ready to run.