3. RRG - '22 / '23
I’m on my way to the Red for Easter, my second trip since my separation, first trip divorced. Last year’s trip was so hard. So hard. Everywhere I turned I saw us and felt our absence. The past few years have taught me that I need to let myself feel everything that comes up, that denying it and pushing it away only makes it worse, though doing this in the middle of a route is it's own special kind of challenge. I’m 80 feet up on a beautiful sandstone route, climbing with people who don’t know me that well. I'm the only woman in the group and I’ve spent most of my climbing life wanting to be/acting like I’m “tough” (whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean). That identity has faded but there’s a faint silhouette of her in the background. Anyway. There I am in 2022, sitting on the rope up high, a beautiful day and I’m dry heaving from trying to swallow my tears, thankful that at least up here no one can see what’s happening. I lower and we eventually call it for that crag. We st...