three hundred words a day. july 16.

These are my hands. 

In my CrossFit world, these callouses are commonplace.  Before I began this particular fitness journey I am on, my hands were soft, they were gentle.  But as the months have passed and as I have learned to pull-up and kip, to power clean, dead lift and snatch, the skin on my hands has toughened, become hardened, in order to protect the fragile skin beneath from tear, from injury. 

Periodically, I will try to file them down, to make them a little less rough and a little more... ladylike.  Although it seems that no matter how much or often I file or buff or pumice them, the callouses never seem to completely go away. 

But that is a good thing, you see, because these hands must be able to withstand what I am asking of them.  They must be tough to make it through.

I find that our hearts are a lot like my hands.  When we are young, they are soft and open and full of childish joy and wonder.  They are inexperienced in the ways of the world and yet, so anxious to learn, to develop, to grow.

Then we begin to age.  We build and break off relationships, we experience the happiness of love and the despair of a broken heart.  Slowly, we begin to understand that love is not a universal language, that loving is not always easy or fair or kind, and instinctively, our hearts begin to develop their own callouses in response.

They toughen, they harden, preparing and protecting themselves from what can only be eventual pain, inevitable hurt.  And just like my hands, it often seems that no matter what soothing methods we attempt, no matter what softening salves we apply, the callouses never seem to go completely away.