reflection

I've been running myself ragged for a long time now. I'm not quite sure how long, but the feeling of always scraping by, by the skin of my teeth, has become as familiar as the air I breathe. Maybe even more so.

I keep feeling guilty about things, and resentment, and failure, and a hazy feeling of discontent and uncertainty and shame. Impostor syndrome looms over me. I spend very little time with other people, and when I do talk to others I always put on a mask, pretend that everything is fine.

It's not fine.

I've known it hasn't been fine - I've not been fine - for years. Have I ever been free? The one time I can let go of my fears is when I am climbing with my friend (my only friend here, maybe, and not a very close one at that - but I don't make close friends easily, and I lose them even faster).

I think I have grown to love climbing so much because when I am climbing, I am just faced with my own body's limitations and a wall. My only relevant fears are the natural fear of gravity. In fact most of the time I am not actually afraid of anything unless I am bouldering and look down and feel a little prickle of vertigo - but not the same fear I usually feel. It's a clean feeling of physical uncertainty and not the cloying mental fear I am usually immersed in.

I won't admit that I was never afraid when climbing. The first time I climbed I was terrified. My arms were always locking at the elbow and my hands gripping like vises to each hold, my feet scrabbling about for purchase, not sure where to look or how to shift my weight, fighting against gravity and my own weight and my own locked muscles and my panicked mind, rather than working with nature, body and mind to ascend. After about half a year of climbing, falling is not so scary anymore. I have learned to look ahead, to identify which holds may better work for my still weak fingers; I've worked on how to better move my body and weight; I'm trying to use my belayer support less and work on my endurance so that I can send a route (climb it in one attempt, without rest). I'm not quite there yet with the longer top rope routes but I'm close. During the last session, I was one move away from the end - a blue route called "Heffalumps", full of big cobbles and jugs and ends with an overhang - when my energy ran out. Last session was also the session that I finally completed a 10b route and tried two others. I remember maybe a month before that was when I finished a 10a. Before that, many 5.9s. My first route was a 5.6. I remember when I was so terrified of falling and I can see my progress and I know the next thing I want to do is learn to lead climb and my ultimate goal, one day, is to climb outside, surrounded by nature, and really test myself. One day.

I'm not ashamed to say that I started climbing at 31 years old. I watch youtube videos of expert climbers and at the gym see children as small as 5 climbing the walls with speed, myself clumsily finding my own way - and it's perfectly fine, I feel no shame, no pressure. I know that I have found something that I truly enjoy that is good for my body and mind, and have made a good friend while doing it. Why do I then pressure myself that I'm clumsily finding my way in my chosen profession, in science, feeling that I am taking too long at this and not doing enough of that when, just like at the wall, I'm doing my best? I think the main reason for my burnout is not external pressure but internal pressure. Just like when I was first learning to climb, I am fighting myself and hating myself for it. When I am mentally too exhausted to continue struggling, I lapse into depression and when I climb out of the depression I hate myself for lapsing - a neverending cycle of not being good enough. But the standard I'm aiming for is one I set out of my own reach.

I see this, now, more clearly than I have for some time, as I write it out here.

I used to journal a lot here, back in college and early grad school years. Maybe I should do this more often.