When It Feels So Good to Push Yourself

I've always been skinny. Rail-skinny. In my adult life I've managed to gain five pounds in my ass and keep it there for a while, but from the time I was eight or so, I've constantly heard comments like, "You need to eat a cheeseburger!", "You have such an appetite for such a small girl, where do you put it all?" I even had to defend myself from a manager when I was 23 and working a part-time job at a tool store who said that I needed to "take my vitamins" so I wouldn't get cold in the back warehouse. This never really caused any self-esteem issues, not serious ones. Luckily, popular culture was still idolizing thinness while my self-image was forming. Thanks, Brittney Spears. If it had been the 50's I probably would have had a harder time.

But you know what also helped my self-esteem? Doing things that surprised people. Surprising myself, even. Challenging myself in physical ways. It's almost like a high. I would lift things that they said were too heavy for me, whenever I could. I would shovel snow, haul firewood, and cliff-jump from tall heights without flinching. I would volunteer to do the hard stuff to prove that I was capable. I would climb trees, as high as I could possibly go, until the people on the ground got nervous and asked me to come down. I never fell. I was sure of every step. My mind was clear and the adrenaline was exhilarating.

When I was 15, I went on a mission trip to Mexico. My church and community helped me earn the money, and I spent 10 days really building houses for entire families who lived in one room structures with dirt floors in Baja. There were a couple proper construction workers there, guys from a local Mexican church. They did their best teaching a whole crew of teenagers and young adults with no experience the proper way to nail boards together in another language from their own. "Flush." they would say over and over, brushing the wood with their open hand to signify that the two-by-fours should be flat and even where they came together. Having a noble cause behind me, I was hungrier. Every day I woke up with the intention to lift as many heavy things and do as much hard work as I could. Every day I volunteered to carry a five-gallon Culligan water jug up the huge hill to the work site.

Now, older and less wild, I'm settled into my busy urban traveler life: going out for drinks, seeing live shows, and admiring city skylines. I don't get as many opportunities to push my thin, feminine body to prove itself strong... or at least scrappy. And I'm not sure if I have the same fiery desire to do so, but it still sneaks out when I'm back in the wild elements. Anyone who has spent any time with me in nature knows I still climb anything and everything. Camping is one of my favorite things to do, because I get to run around in a world bigger than me and try to match it's bigness. I get to climb trees, scale rock face and topple heavy boulders off mountains, tumbling and booming and cracking, all the way down.

This weekend is my birthday. I'll be 27. I don't think I've pushed myself to the point of feeling a rush of adrenaline in a while, so I've decided it's about time to.

There's a University gym in Amsterdam with an amazing all-purpose room. I go there every week with my two triathlete host parents, usually they teach a spin-cycling class while the kids and I take advantage of the set up. Punching bags, climbing ropes, and gymnastic aerial equipment can be lowered down from the ceiling, and we pull everything out and just play for an hour. Their spin class ended, but we still have the gym once a week for the rest of January. Last week we all went, and we all played; the parents, the kids, and the two au pairs. We are going again on my birthday, and I'm going to climb all the way to the top of one of those ropes.

Believe me, it scares me to say this. I don't think it'll be any easy feat. The picture that comes to mind is Mulan trying to sling her way up that pole to retrieve the arrow. I tried it last week (climbing the rope, not retrieving the arrow) and thanks to some technique coaching from my wonderful host mom, and I was able to clamber up it a ways. It was great! But I was maybe a third of the way up and it looked like a long way down from there. It's not that I'm afraid of heights, but I felt very in tune with the fact that if my body couldn't hold itself up anymore, I was headed down quickly. Needless to say, I made my way back down the rope until I could drop safely onto the mat.

Still, I feel like it's time again to surprise myself, and do something incredible. Is climbing a rope really incredible? I guess that's subjective. For me it would be, and if I have to chalk up my hands and try a hundred times then by golly, I'll do it. Because doesn't it just feel so good to push yourself?