I wrote about starting CrossFit a while back and described it as waking up every morning knowing I was going to be asked to do something impossible. A few weeks ago I realized that a shift has occurred. I no longer dread the impossible, I dread doing difficult things.
It’s a minute, but huge distinction — the impossible has become possible.
I still can’t do a pull-up, but I’m getting closer. My original flailings at the bar with zero vertical movement have been replaced by flailing, swinging and only a few inches of airspace between my head and the bar. And when the workout includes handstand pushups I need a mat between my head and the ground, but that’s a huge improvement over those first days when I needed 2 mats under my head and I couldn’t lower myself to the ground without falling on my head — forget pushing back up!
The list of things I can do has grown while the list of “can’ts” is shrinking.
It’s still hard every day. I still have to make myself go. I still don’t love it in the way that I think people who love working out must. But I realized that doing something that I don’t love because it’s good for me isn’t fake or inauthentic, it’s discipline and maturity.
What I do love is that I’m stronger than I used to be. I love that it gives me more confidence mentally, especially when my anxiety used to tell me that my body was weak and was going to fail me. I love that my thighs aren’t as jiggly and I can actually feel muscles underneath my skin. I didn’t think that was something I could change as I got older. Now I’m wondering what would have been possible if I had tried to do this in my 20s!
Someone said, “You’re so skinny. I hate you,” but instead of getting offended, I laughed. First off, I’m starting from a place of good genes, but yes, over the last 9 months I have started to look leaner. But the bigger point is that it took a lot of hours of hard work and I wasn’t doing it to “get skinny.” If you told me back in July that I could look like I look today by doing hundreds of hours of physical labor I would have said, “forget it.” Totally not worth it. I’m not much different in size than when I sat on the couch all day and that was way less work. But the physical and mental strength training? That part is worth it and why I keep going. Plus, developing discipline is a good grownup life skill. The getting leaner and fitter looking along the way? Bonus. But certainly not why I get moving every morning.
So, skinny or not, I’ll continue to get up every morning and go do hard things and walk around with torn up hands as evidence that I’m working on those hard things. And someday even a pull-up will be possible.
