Nothing can be small anymore.
When I look online, I don’t see work-in-progress gardens like the one I toil in. I don’t see affordable but healthy food like I cook, reliable but unsexy cars like my family drives, or competent but amateur art work like my friends make. In a hyperconnected, algorithm-driven world, it feels like nothing much matters if it isn’t exceptional, enormous, or highly profitable. This is really sad.
We’ve forgotten that there is wonder and magic in the small, imperfect pieces of life. I was reminded of this last weekend, when my daughter and I found ourselves in a sweaty, grueling contest for the right not to come in last in the lowest division of a contest no one else will remember.
One of the things that has given me great joy over the last year and a half is my youngest daughter Hannah’s desire to exercise with me. Her interest in working out (and mostly just spending time with me) started when she was tiny. I have pictures of her at age 7 with a sparkly leotard and makeshift gym bag ready to get sweaty. These are some of my favorite photos.
Back in 2024, when Hannah was 13, the owner of the nearby CrossFit gym decided she was mature enough to attend a Saturday class under my close supervision. She would exercise right next to me, and I would be responsible for making sure she stayed safe and was not a distraction. It went well enough that we were allowed to keep coming together.
As a parent, there’s something amazing about having a teenager who wants to do things with you. I don’t know how many parents get that experience, and in all the projects where I have looked up and found I had an unexpected helper, I have never taken my luck for granted.
When my wife was pregnant with our first child, a mentor gave me advice on raising daughters. He had two grown kids and great relationships with them, so I was keen to hear his perspective. He, a fellow veterinarian, told me that teenage daughters are like cats. The more you try to force an interaction with them, the less likely it is to go well. The key, he said, was to just be around doing your thing and to make sure you were available when they decided to engage with you.
I have no idea if this advice applies to all or even most teenage daughters, but I think it has served me well. In the case of Hannah, it seems that I ended up with one of those cats who loves to be a part of my hobby, and comes running as soon as it becomes clear what I’m planning to do. I have a friend who loves playing Dungeons and Dragons, and her cat insists on batting the colorful dice as soon as my friend sits down. I suspect Hannah and my friend’s cat may be kindred spirits.
This last weekend, Hannah and I entered our first CrossFit competition together. It was called the Carolina Summer Games and featured a co-ed teams option. The competition happened to fall on Hannah’s 15th birthday, so we named our team Shut Up & Drive-r’s Permit and entered the least competitive division available. We made sleeveless t-shirts that had a Caution: Student Driver warning on the back. The front of my shirt said “Terrified Dad,” and Hannah’s said “Birthday Girl.”
I want to pause here and just mention that if you think there are not a lot of nice people left in this world, you should wear a birthday shirt on your birthday to see how people react. It’s really amazing. From the tatted-up guy working at the gas station to the fresh-faced smoothie barista that stopped Hannah to ask if she’d like a birthday smoothie, people everywhere went out of their way to wish her a happy day. It was one of those faith-in-humanity-restored moments all day long. When it comes to birthdays, it seems humanity is still on the same page about being kind to each other.
When Hannah and I registered for the competition, I told her all I wanted was to have an adventure together. Hannah said all she wanted was to not come in last place. As we entered the final event of the competition on Sunday afternoon, our team was having an adventure, and we were also not in last place (but just barely). We were 13th out of 14 teams, battling with a co-ed forty-something duo calling themselves Two Queens, One Barbell.
If you’re picturing an epic athletic duel between two serious fitness teams… it was not that. If you’ve ever seen very young kids try to break open a pinata – all flailing limbs, tears of frustration, and a high risk of injury – you’re much closer to the truth.
In the final moments of the contest, as all the other teams shook hands and started their stretching routines, Me, Hannah, and the queens were locked in what was, only to us, a fitness battle for the ages. The weight required for the women’s barbell was right at Hannah’s absolute physical limit, so to get our team the total number of repetitions we needed, I had taken on a lot of extra lifting myself. By the time Hannah stepped onto the SkiErg (a machine that simulates cross-country skiing) my arms felt like jello and I had absolutely nothing left in the tank. I was spent, and the final stretch was all up to her.
The Two Queens were ahead of us by about 10 seconds, which is a long time in the sport of competitive suffering on exercise machines. But that’s when it happened. There, in a sweaty gym, in front of about 30 screaming fans, Hannah gave everything she had. As the judges held up their fingers to let the crowd know how much distance the two competitors had covered, everyone saw Hannah catching up. After a minute of work, Hannah was not ten seconds behind, but five. Then three. Then the race was tied with nothing left but the final sprint.
Picture Secretariat tearing towards the triple crown, but wearing a birthday shirt and stationary on a SkiErg with his dad shouting encouragement. Imagine all of our friends who had seen Hannah training with her Dad for the last year cheering their hearts out. At this point, Hannah later told me she saw both the gym owner and the physical therapist who let Hannah job shadow with her starting to cry.
And Hannah did it! She passed the female skiing Queen and crossed the metaphorical finish line before collapsing and being snatched up in a bear hug by me. A woman with tears in her eyes said “What I wouldn’t give to have my Dad cheering for me like that,” and then I was holding back tears as well.
I won’t ever forget this weekend, and I don’t expect anyone else to remember it. The competition was the epitome of “small time,” and if I posted a video of it on Instagram, we’d get laughed off of the #CrossFit. I don’t care.
Life, for most of us, is actually quite small. It’s both fueled and rocked by events that will never make a headline, that mean nothing to people 10 miles away, and that will never get likes or shares. It’s made valuable with a currency that doesn’t matter to anyone who isn’t there, and it has nothing to do with profit.
I hope to remember this. When my career is done, and I’m reflecting back on the biggest wins and the most enduring successes in my time on this earth, I hope I’ll remember the time I wore a sleeveless t-shirt that said “Terrified Dad” into the least competitive contest we could find, and faced down Two Queens, One Barbell with my birthday girl for the chance to not be in last place.
