Dear Barbell

Dear Barbell,You and I have been friends for a long time now.We started out in CrossFit together, remember? Just us and the rower in the garage. It was cold then. Too cold to touch you some mornings but I didn’t care. I thought you were beautiful. (I liked you soooo much more than the rower. Shhh. Don’t tell.)Then came the pull-up bar and the kettlebells and the GHD.I loved them too, but never as much as you. And their love came later – when we were in the box. More room. More people came to see us. We had to share you. So we brought in more bars, but I still remembered you by the paint smear on the knurling where I had picked you up one autumn day in the garage, even though I had been painting trim. I never could keep my hands off you.Now, we’ve moved again.More people than ever rub their hands on you. I looked for you today, in the bar holder, as I frantically tried to grab my bar to get set up for the WOD. There were people waiting behind me, after all, and they were getting anxious. CrossFit does that to you. You want it and you want it now. I didn’t find you. I used another bar. It wasn’t the same but it was pretty good, I have to admit. My friend says, “Even bad sex is good.” That seems true for the barbell too. Even bad barbell is good.I have a fancy new bar now.She’s high-class. Stays in my office unless I’m handling her. Doesn’t mingle with the general pop on the main floor. I love her. She’s fine in ways that folks can’t even imagine until they try her. Champagne. Top shelf. Sweetness beyond compare.But she’ll never be you.You were my first. No matter how many bars I hold in my life, I’ll always remember my first clean and jerk with you and my first snatch.Fondly,Me