The Family You Find

You have the family you're born into. And then you have other families you find along the way.

For some folks, that's the military.

Or their neighborhood. Maybe a club they join. Some group of folks who "get" them and among whom they feel instantly at home. There's no tension, no strife, just acceptance and work towards a common cause. Like how families should be, but seldom are.

For us, it's the gym.

Here, we find people who look like us in some ways. Callused hands, noticeable traps. And who act like us in some ways: “Come on. More pull-ups. Let's go.”

But, most importantly, they feel like we do in so many ways.

They work hard. They sacrifice. They care. They might be three thousand miles away, or they might be right next to us in the gym. Somehow the distance doesn't matter. Besides, the blogs and Facebook took care of the distance problem, or so it seems. Miles have faded in the digital world.

There could be a million words written about CrossFit and its legacy to this world, but it might all come down to one: Community.

Sure that sounds like sacrilege over the other, more famous phrase: Elite Fitness. But maybe it's right.

You have the family you're born into.

And you have the gym family you were lucky enough to find along the way.