One of the most concretely healing and liberating aspects of my vacation here in Colorado this summer has been all the rock climbing I’ve been doing, learning so many new skills outdoors (trad climbing, focusing mainly on multi-pitch and cracks) and simply enjoying it thoroughly.
I’ve always had the instinct to climb and scramble anywhere and everywhere — I’ve always been adventurous, restless, and reckless in general!
But it wasn’t until recently that I really took up rock climbing. Part of the procrastination was on me: I kept sticking to my routine (swimming, running, yoga, sailing; and then just hiking or skiing on vacation, depending on the season). But part of it was also due to the stifling, discouraging, or simply overshadowing messages/attitudes I got from various persons throughout my life: first, my mother, who was scared of almost everything; then, for many years, a toxic relationship with a partner who tried to change me, to force me into a “girly” or “needy” person who was so alien to my true self; and finally, a guy on whom I got a crush shortly before I started climbing in the summer of 2019 and who turned out to climb at my same gym and to be a very experienced boulderer. While the relationship with my ex-partner was stifling and downright toxic in many ways, the situation with the boulderer was just weird and confusing, but each in different ways overshadowed the climber in me or the fact that climbing felt like my own thing, and had always felt like my thing to me. So that’s what is so wonderful and important for me now: that I have come into my climber self, at last! I am doing this because I love it; I am pushing my own boundaries, learning new skills, conquering some of my fears, discovering amazing new places and wonderful new people, enjoying myself and being myself as a climber, just as I want to, freely and independently, with nobody trying to change me or limit me or patronize me or overshadow me.
So yay! for the climber in me — and for all the amazing climbers I’ve been meeting and making friends with recently!
The Little Prince and the Fox 