Last night I finally put the Iron Gym together, Nick and I marveling at the simple engineering of it (it really is a clever design). We put it up in my little office doorway and Nick instantly impresses me with his manliness, doing a few chin-ups in a row with perfect form, bitching that it’s been years since he’s done any.

Iron Gym

I looked at the thing above my head, memories of nightmares on the playground with the evil monkey bars mocking me throughout my chubby childhood. Swinging from one bar to another was always an impossibility, the best I could ever manage was to hold on with both hands and hang there. Real fun activity.

So last night, I jumped up a little, hung on and tried to do a couple negative chin-ups. Totally lame, but I was ok about it, knowing full well that it’d be weeks before I’d be able to get up there properly.

This morning Nick does a few more while I’m sitting here at the computer and again I’m suitably impressed and jealous. He leaves for an errand and I figure I’ll try this sucker again, so I take my rings off (I’m serious now) grab the bar, and out of nowhere, nowhere I tell you, I pull off three chin-ups. Three!! OK, so I didn’t go all the way down before the third, but the fact that I could do any was so unexpected that I was like “what just happened?” A half-hour later, I did it again.

Dear readers, I want you to know that I’m uber aware of how this blog is coming off like one big annoying bragging session lately, good stuff has been happening and I can’t help but get a huge kick out of it all. And while I’m sure it becomes really annoying to read about someone constantly going “look what I can do, look what I can do!” here’s the deal, the message, the moral to my spouting: If I can do this shit, anyone can.

I know a great deal of you are already pushing boundaries, seeing improvements you never expected and enjoying the fruits of your labor. I’m sure too, that there are some who read this and feel overwhelmed sometimes with their own physicality, like it’s such work to make changes and probably not worth the effort. Maybe you’ve run out of fun things to do period, old hobbies become “been there, done that” and you think great, this is it until I die. I know because that was me.

There’s so much more to growing and getting older though. Whether through physical activity, art, cooking, whatever…there is passion to be found out there, you just have to stretch your boundaries, be curious, believe in yourself enough to embarrass yourself or fail a little. Attempt something new! You have no idea what you’re capable of until you try.

This heartfelt message brought to you by Iron Gym (as seen on TV!)

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