Category Archives: Uncategorized

There’s this song by Bruce Springsteen, “The Wrestler”, with a refrain that often comes into my mind  “…  I always leave with less than I had before  …” But it comes to my mind by contrast, i.e. it comes to my mind when I actually feel the opposite, that “I leave with more than IContinue reading “Thank you”

Rebuilding. That’s how it feels to me at the moment. Almost from scratch but with a heap of gained experience — or rather, it’s up to me to choose what I want to keep and what I want to shed for this rebuilding process.  Scary. But also full of opportunities.

OMG, it just dawned on me why that clarifying conversation with the boulderer two weeks ago brought me such a mix of relief and grief (and maybe more grief that I had been expecting)! It’s because the closure with that specific person actually for me was the letting go and leaving behind of so muchContinue reading

Sometimes one same situation can bring me such different emotions, depending on the moment, on how I’m processing it or what phase I’m in.  In the past two weeks I’ve often been feeling that relief and sadness can be the two sides of the same coin for me.  Two weeks ago, all I was feelingContinue reading “Two sides of the same coin”

I’ve met someone I like in a way that is very different from anyone I’ve ever liked before (or like at the moment).  We met within one of the groups of climbing buddies and have climbed together three times in the past few weeks, twice with other persons from the same climbing group and onceContinue reading

Yesterday I was able to rediscover — or rather, once again express and give resonance to — an important part of myself: the more extrovert, playful part of me who wants (and even needs) to just share simple fun. I’m neither fully an introvert nor really an extrovert, I’m somewhere in between, needing a lotContinue reading “Shared fun!”

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” [Victor Hugo] Last week I was having a conversation with a person to whom I’ve grown close in some weird ways and hadn’t seen since before my amazing trip this summer, so weContinue reading “Coming into myself and out to the world”

I don’t know exactly what is going on with me but I feel like I’m on the top of a mountain or edge of a cliff: high up, having reached a high point and achieved some wonderful goals, but also in an extremely precarious situation and unstable equilibrium. There are days, or even just briefContinue reading “Unstable equilibrium”

Courage to me means owning my emotions: acknowledging my own feelings to myself, admitting what I feel, allowing myself to feel that way and, if necessary, telling people around me who might be involved/connected/affected by my emotions.  Courage to me yesterday meant walking back into a full classroom, after being away from campus for aContinue reading “Courage today”

Just a few days ago, I saw this sticker I really liked at my climbing gym: a rainbow flag with the words “Courage is different for each of us” written on it. And Wednesday’s conversation with the boulderer (which reminded me in many ways of some other conversations I had in the past few yeasContinue reading ““Courage is different for each of us””