Awesome! Starting the year with my weight, squat, deadlift, and bench press all at 150kg/330lb

Rico Dulce & Jim Slade

Measuring Stick

We didn’t plan it. That’s the part that still bothers me.

We were standing in the corner of the gym near the old chalk bucket, talking about nothing...work, injuries, the way time erodes people differently. He laughed and rolled his sleeve up, gesturing as he always used to, and without thinking I did the same.

Two forearms. Side by side.

For a second my brain refused to process it. I stared the way you stare at an optical illusion, waiting for the trick to reveal itself. But there was no trick. His forearm was solid, trained, human. Veins, muscle, bone...everything where it was supposed to be.

Mine was…not.

It wasn’t just bigger. Bigger would have been understandable. Mine was wrong. Three times the volume, the skin stretched tight and glossy like it had forgotten what relaxation felt like. The veins didn’t branch so much as press, thick cords crawling under the surface as if trying to escape. When I flexed without meaning to, the muscle rose in a slow, deliberate way...less contraction, more assertion.

He noticed the silence.

“Jesus,” he said quietly.

Not impressed. Not jealous. Just… stunned.

That’s when it hit me: there was no comparison anymore. This wasn’t two lifters measuring progress. This was a specimen next to a memory. I felt something detach inside me...not pain, not pride, but recognition. The same feeling you get when you realize a door has locked behind you and didn’t make a sound.

I lowered my arm. He didn’t.

His forearm looked fragile now. Vulnerable. Temporary.

I tried to say something normal. A joke. An explanation. But the words wouldn’t come, because explanations belong to people who still share the same scale of reality. All I could think was how small he felt standing next to me...not just physically, but existentially. Like we were no longer the same species occupying the same space.

He clapped me on the shoulder and said, “You’ve gone somewhere else, man.”

He meant it casually. I didn’t take it that way.

As he walked off, I caught my reflection in the mirror—my arm hanging heavy at my side, pulling at the joint like it was testing its limits. I didn’t feel strong in that moment. I felt separate. Like I had crossed a threshold without ceremony or permission.

That’s the real cost. Not the strain. Not the isolation.