"I don't think you have to leave
If to change is what you need
You can change right next to me
When you're high, I'll take the lows
You can ebb and I can flow
And we'll take it slow
And grow as we go"
Adil graduated university around July, and started his job early August. He also recently got married to me and moved in with me. He took a break from climbing prior to all that because of the pandemic and also because of an injury that needed to be tended to. It's a lot of transition to happen right after a very long break. It became very hard to pick things up from where he left them. Sometimes he wonders if he should even pick things up from where he left them or abandon ship and focus on the next big thing. Yet, at the same time he couldn't.
When he's in the gym, he wants to focus on climbing and finish hard routes; he wants to relish the pain and enjoy the process; he wants to grit his teeth and enjoy reaching the top of the problem. However, there are days when he psyches himself up for all of these - all chips in, 100% go time - yet he comes out of it with nothing; a "fruitless" 3 hours or so. He goes into deep disappointment (and anger) with himself for not climbing as strong as he wanted to and then he goes into another form of disappointment, thinking he wasted those hours when he could have diverted it to something more "productive" like his job.
What is it about climbing that is so hard to let go? What does it promise?
If we go on a really objective perspective, climbing is not a necessity for survival, it is not a physiological need. It does not feed, it does not shelter, it is not air (because it's all chalk), and a climbing session is definitely not rest time. I think the pandemic has made it clear to everyone what is necessary for surviving as a human organism.
Climbing is probably more under Esteem needs and Self-actualisation. It is the meaning we ascribe to it that make it matter. It is what we get from it that we chase.
When I moved from Boulder Movement to HubSpot, I realised a stark difference on how we climbers see climbing and how the others see it. When I was working in the climbing industry, my social circle is 90% climbers and they would tell me that I was lucky to be climbing for work and that "that is the dream" whereas my now colleagues think it's very cool but they also think that too many risks involved in it, a bit on the "extreme" end to be doing every day.
For climbers. "the spectacle [of climbing] is so fascinating ... so intriguing that we are drawn by its web into a state of involvement where we forget that it is a game. We become fascinated to the point where the cheering and the booing are transformed into intense love and hate, or delight and terror, ecstatic orgasm or screaming meemies."
I am not saying there is anything wrong for feeling climbing as part of one's basic needs. I, too, feel the same. In my 9.5 years of climbing, I never once laid it down easily. You'd have to carry me out of the climbing world in brute force, and believe me when I say I'd be biting, kicking, and screaming on the way out. I just think that it's good to reflect sometimes, especially for people of the same demographic as me and Adil (working warriors), on our priorities right now.
We all at one point have asked ourselves "until when I can keep this fire burning?" Personally, I do not think the fire need to be extinguished ever, that one must come at a point in time to put it out. Depending in the season of your life, it is okay if the fire takes on a more ember form if you need to slow down. Blaze when you can, when you have the time and energy - it's all up to you. And what comes with your choice, you must accept.
In my years of climbing, my relationship with it has morphed in different ways. There was a time it was the core magma of my life, and right now it is the flying sparks, embellishing the other aspects of my life.
So, to my dear Adil (and everyone who is in the same boat as us), it is okay to mould climbing according to your life and to your needs right now. You are not a shadow of your former glory nor are you a bygone. You sit in your fire, ember glowing, sparks flying; still there, still lighting up your life. There is no need to pick up from where you left off, but be just as you are. I'll always be there cheering you on, regardless. Allez!