In September, I wrote “Normally I avoid quick and dirty posts, but I’m tired from carrying home a used 70-pound kettlebell I bought from Queens by subway. That’s many blocks of farmer’s walks and carrying that thing down stairs into the subway, back up to the surface, and up the stairs to my apartment. Maybe half a mile walking plus six or seven flights of stairs. It’s almost midnight and I want to post and go to bed soon.”

Well, here’s another quick and dirty post to end the year on a bang. Want to know the result of that heavier kettlebell?

My jeans don’t fit; from doing squats, deadlifts, swings, and hip thrusts. The thighs got tight enough that I’m researching how to stretch them. I think if I wear them wet, they’ll give.

I ask myself if I should post about it. I’m not saying I’m muscular, nor that it’s that big a deal. I’m thin. I’m fifty years old and my muscles can’t grow like when I was twenty, but I don’t skip leg days and they’re growing, even if not that much. Enough to make wearing once comfortable jeans uncomfortably tight. And getting dressed makes me think about it, so writing about it is cathartic in a way.

In my twenties, I trained to play ultimate, which meant speed, endurance, dexterity, and teamwork more than strength or size, so I never tried to get big. I still dream what I could have achieved had I put as much effort then into lifting as I do now.

Oh well. I can’t change the past, but I can enjoy the discomfort.

• ← What fruit or vegetable has industrial agriculture destroyed most?
• Annual Christmas tree dumping →