I don’t intimidate
much, but this was new territory for me. In the time since I retired and
started taking care of the girls full time, I stop doing what had worked for me
before. I ate like shit, I didn’t drink a lot, but I drank enough and I smoked
my beloved cigars every damn day. When I finished up with school (for the last
time, I think) I was pushing past 300 lbs like a runaway train, out of breath
just walking up the stairs and headed nowhere fast. I thought my path in life
after I retired would be different, but storytelling or at least the chance to,
dried up. It kills me to admit that something that I loved doing was pretty
much gone, for whatever bullshit reason anyone wants to admit to. I really
thought I was headed somewhere with it, but that door closed in my face.
When the
opportunity to apply for a job I had been watching from afar for over a year (they
only hire once a year) came up, I applied. I don’t have to work anymore, but I
need to give back to the community that took my family in. Another opportunity popped up and I could
basically pick my date when I started, but there’s an issue. If I get tired
walking up a set of stairs, how in the hell can I do either job? So I walked
in. Not triumphantly, but the door was unlocked and I turned the handle.
I used to make
jokes about people who did crossfit. With their motivational socks, every
sentence that starts and ends with the word “crossfit” and the cult like
appearance of it, but I needed it. It didn’t need me, but walking into a gym
full of people doing things that my body could no longer do gave me a reality
check. This was work and I had wasted the last 3 years avoiding it. The first
person I talked to was more jacked than I had ever been or even dreamed about.
She was a nice enough lady though, kind of walked me through how everything
goes and asked where I live. I told her a couple of miles away and she snapped
back that it was a good thing, so I wouldn’t have any excuses to not show up. I
instantly became the same fat guy they had seen over and over. Someone who
wanted to make a change, but didn’t last long enough to be remembered. I didn’t
tell her that I was intimidated, I didn’t tell her that my fathers heart
stopped in the gym while he was working out, leading him into a vegetative
state and later to his death, while I was in Iraq. I just said that I had
wasted enough time and it was time to get to work.
Going into a
situation as the “fat guy” doesn’t go as unnoticed as it does at deer camp.
Hunting has become one of my passions, and hunting takes all body types. I didn’t
think that a class that was loaded with people chiseled out of stone would be
as accepting. I was wrong. Im positive that I am the most out of shape person
in the group who has started there and possibly the most out of shape that ever
came in, but we all had to turn that same handle to get in the building. Within 5 minutes of being there, I got daps,
handshakes, a couple bro hugs and a feeling of being welcome. The gym is loaded
with vets, which is something that means a lot to me. When I retired, the phone
didn’t ring nearly as much with calls from other military types. This gym
forced me to interact with those like me, which I hadn’t realized how much I
missed. I hunt with other combat wounded veterans and I love them dearly, they
are my brothers. This was something that was different. I got to sweat again,
which doesn’t happen too much while sitting in a deer blind.
It hasn’t been
long at all. The lactic acid is still fresh on my muscles, my legs and upper
body hate me everyday, but I need this. I need to sweat again, to feel physical
exhaustion and that corresponding pain. I have found a way to incorporate all
that elk, halibut and whitetail in my freezer into my everyday life. Im not
eating for pleasure which has been something dogging me my entire life, I’m
eating so I don’t suck so much the next day and I have the energy to finally finish
a workout. There are things that I can do, things I don’t do so well and there
are things that my body just won’t let me do right now. As much as I wish that
I could be the finished product, I know the journey is part of the reward.
I’ll be there tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. Those days and
the previous days all start the same, with a turn of the handle. Go get you
some.
