Original Post Title: Life Lessons from the Thrift Store
Original Post Date: May 1, 2019
No matter how tight you clutch to ideas of whom you will be years down the road, you are going to look down and realize you have lessened your grip on the non-important aspects of your life. Growth is a small, steady process that runs continually in the background of your life. If you live in the moment, and focus on what is around you, you will surely find that your priorities align themselves with more than just jeans. - JBJ May 1, 2019
I was reminded of this life lesson as I prepared for what would be the $423.77 Night I Will Never Regret. As I slipped into a pair of Gap, light washed, skinny jeans, jeans that had not fit since the early parts of college, I could not help but remember what a pair of Lucky Brand Jeans taught me in 2019.
In 2019, a volunteer with no true income, with a conveniently placed “Lucky You” behind the zipper, I bought a pair of Lucky Brand jeans. These jeans were to replace the skinny jeans I had outgrown.
4 years into what would be an 8-year journey with CrossFit, dieting, mental health, and an identity crisis, I had outgrown the calf grabbing skinny jeans I once adored.
I remember asking my mom, an 8th grader with my first pair of “nut huggers” as she called them, at what age would I have to stop wearing these jeans, when would it no longer be socially acceptable, as if growing up and changing is a conscious process we choose.
I was never going to stop wearing these jeans. I loved these jeans. I spent too much money on these jeans. I endured heckling at the hands of my parents for these jeans. I risked double leg amputation and severe chaffing from these jeans: okay, no, but you get the point.
That was all until I looked down on, May 1st, 2019, and realized my jeans no longer wrapped around my calves and thighs with the same vigor: I could barely fit them.
What did I learn about life from a pair of thrift store jeans I bought five years ago?
No matter how tight you, or your jeans, clutch on to ideas of whom you will be years down the road, at some point you are going to look down, yes down, and realize you have lessened your grip on the non-important aspects of your life.
Growth is a small, steady process that runs continually in the background of your life. If you live in the moment, and focus on what is around you, you will surely find that your priorities align themselves with more than just jeans.
But something happened on November 9, 2023, as I got read to see Laufey: the skinny jeans fit again.
Since a sophomore in college, like the skinny jeans around my legs, I clung to an identity formed around CrossFit: I clung so tightly that my first year of working in Texas, people called me CrossFit Jason.
Like my jeans, my identity was founded in something external.
The hours in the gym, the diets to drop fat, then put on muscle, the mental anguish of feeling like a failure when life did not allow me to train, this year, I suddenly left it all behind.
On the cusp of it all, keys to a gym I could go to anytime I wanted, and a dedicated coach who was a pioneer in CrossFit writing my programming, I stopped.
In 8 years of living in the moment, much like when I looked down on May 1, 2019, I looked around at my life: I was a full-time teacher, coach, student, and person trying to figure out my own life.
I failed my goal. I gave up. By some metrics, I quit. Yet, I was able to walk away feeling accomplished.
The greatest regret people have on their deathbeds is that they never pursued their boldest dreams. - Matt Higgins
I did everything I could in order to feel I had given everything I needed: 8 years of 2–3 hours in the gym by myself. Early bed times for earlier mornings. Missed holidays because I did not want to forgo training. Reciting the same “no, it's okay, please eat, I am fine”. Countless injuries, moments I was not fully present to, a delayed gratification that had no end in sight, everything I did for 8 years was based on how I could make a dream come that never did.
But I was still happy.
When I decided to walk away, I was happy with the time I put in and grateful for whom it made me to be, but my identity could not be what I did: that was not who I was.
Yet, my habits and joys based themselves in the lifestyle I lived: structured days, whole foods and home prepared meals, being active, and hobbies such as reading and journaling to maximize recovery.
I will never regret the 8 some years of my life, because what was gained is priceless.
So, as I crossed the finish line of my first 10k on December 2, 2023, my first sporting competition in 8 years of training to compete in CrossFit, I was reminded of the lesson I learned from a single pair of jeans but with new knowledge.
For the record, this is not the finish line, this was roughly the last 400 m which I proceeded to sprint after the video ended.
No matter how tight you, or your jeans, clutch to ideas of whom you will be years down the road, at some point, you are going to look around and realize you have lessened your grip on the non-important aspects of your life:
You have made choices that redefined who you thought you were so you could become the person you are meant to be.
At our core we will not change, yet the expression of who we are may.
When I left the gym, I needed to find ways to still be healthy but to also express this desire in a holistically healthy way. I love to be active and lead a healthy life, that is part of who I am, yet, instead of spending countless hours in the gym, I looked to spend quiet mornings outside.
With the help of one of my closet friends the past five years, a fellow volunteer from the time I actually bought my Lucky Brand jeans, I began to train for a 10k. My diet changed, my training changed, my relationship with food, friends, exercise, and life changed.
Like I explained in my post on how concerts can teach us to love ourselves, I have embraced where I am: my life circumstances.
A teacher focused on teaching how to think not what to think, a coach focused on taking 8-years of competitive level experience and delivering that in bite size nuggets, a son, brother, grandson, and friend trying to support from afar, the life I lived for 8 years no longer fit. Much like my jeans, the time came to try out a new style and embrace the changes life had presented me. It doesn't mean the time was for not, or that I will never return to the space, but
It was only in being willing to let go of what was in order to figure out what could be, that I could slide on my old jeans, my legs a bit smaller from a deficit in macros and a surplus of cardio.
After countless hours throwing weight above my head, swinging around a pull-up bar, and trying to walk on my hands, I could never have imagined I would look so happy to have run six miles.
I am not sure if I will run another 10k. I am ready to get back into the gym to lift, yet, much like my jeans, I am sure this lesson will come back around as I reflect in a few weeks, months, or years, and see how I have grown closer to who I am supposed to be.
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