The Climber I’m Trying to Find Again
I’ve been climbing for 6 years now, and sometimes I miss the way I first approached it.
Back then, I came into the gym with pure curiosity. Every climb felt impossible anyway, so there was nothing to protect. No expectation. No pressure. I was happy just trying things, falling off, resting, and trying again. If I made even the smallest bit of progress, that was enough for me to leave satisfied.
I didn’t care what grade I climbed because everything felt hard.
But somewhere along the way, climbing quietly became something else.
As I improved, I started building expectations around myself. If I can climb this grade, then I should be able to do this one too. If I climbed well last week, why can’t I do it today?
And then one day, I fall off something easier than usual.
Suddenly, it’s no longer just falling off a climb.
It becomes:
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Have you regressed?”
“Why are you struggling on this?”
“Have you not been trying hard enough?”
It’s strange how quickly climbing can stop feeling like movement and start feeling like evidence. Evidence of whether I’m disciplined enough, mentally strong enough, good enough.
And honestly, what does “good enough” even mean anymore? What does sending actually mean to me?
Maybe I’ve become obsessed with sending because it feels complete. Like I finally finished something. Ticked something off. Closed the loop. When I don’t send a climb, part of me feels like I left something unfinished behind. Like I gave up too early or didn’t get everything I could out of it.
When I’m sending, it feels like proof that I’m progressing. But when I’m not — or when I feel further away than ever — it suddenly feels personal.
Especially when fear gets involved.
Sometimes I hesitate on the wall because something genuinely feels unsafe. Sometimes it’s real risk assessment. But other times, I know logically that I’m probably okay and I still can’t fully commit to the move.
And when that happens, I don’t always know how to interpret it.
Was I respecting fear?
Or was I just making excuses because I was scared?
It almost feels like the wall is yelling back at me:
“The effort you gave wasn’t enough.”
“You held yourself back.”
“This is why you couldn’t do it.”
“You’re weak.”
Which is strange, because even while I’m feeling those things, another part of me knows none of it really matters. It’s one move on one climb on one day. I just need to rest, pull back on, and try again.
So why does it feel so personal sometimes?
Why does one moment of hesitation suddenly feel like evidence about who I am?
A lot of climbers talk about wanting to get stronger, less fearful, more capable. And I understand that feeling too. But sometimes I wonder what we actually mean when we say we want to become “better.”
Because if climbing is really about effort, presence, problem solving, learning, and returning despite failure, then does it actually matter how strong I am today? Or how scared I am today?
Will I ever feel enough?
Isn’t part of climbing simply turning up honestly with whatever you have that day and trying anyway?
But then another fear appears underneath that question:
If I stop caring about sending, will I stop improving?
And maybe that’s the deeper fear.
Not fear of falling.
Not fear of failing.
Fear of stagnating.
Fear of never becoming better.
Fear that if I’m not progressing, then somehow I’m falling behind.
So where does this pressure to constantly improve come from?
I think entitlement quietly exists in it too.
Not entitlement in the arrogant sense, but in the emotional sense of believing that effort should guarantee outcome.
Because climbing often teaches us that hard work leads to progress. Train more, project longer, try harder, and eventually you send. So somewhere along the way, I started building this internal equation:
effort equals progress.
And when reality breaks that equation, frustration appears.
“I’ve put in the work.”
“So why can’t I do it?”
“I should be climbing better than this.”
Maybe the word “should” is where the suffering starts.
Because climbing constantly reminds us that progress is not linear. Fear changes performance. Fatigue changes performance. Some days your mind simply feels heavier. Sometimes someone climbs your project easily while you struggle on moves you “should” be able to do.
And emotionally, that can feel offensive to the part of us that wants life to feel fair and predictable.
Maybe that’s part of maturity in climbing:
still trying hard,
still caring deeply,
while slowly letting go of the belief that the world owes us progress on our timeline.
I remember one day coming home from climbing and just wanting to cry.
Not because of one specific climb or one bad session. It was more like emotional exhaustion had been quietly building for a long time and finally caught up to me.
I sat there wondering whether I even enjoyed climbing anymore.
And that thought scared me.
Because climbing had become so emotionally heavy that sometimes I hated being on the wall. Not every session, not every climb, but enough that I started questioning myself.
I would look around and see other people genuinely enjoying the process. They seemed excited by small progress, excited by movement itself, excited even when they failed. Sometimes they enjoyed climbs that I personally hated — maybe because of the movement, maybe because of the fear involved, maybe because they experienced the climb differently than I did.
And instead of simply accepting that, part of me immediately turned inward and thought:
“What’s wrong with me?”
Why does this feel so hard emotionally?
Why can’t I just enjoy climbing the way other people seem to?
Why does every session sometimes feel like a reflection of my worth instead of just climbing?
But maybe I got confused somewhere along the way.
Maybe loving climbing doesn’t mean enjoying every moment of it.
Maybe discomfort is part of caring deeply about something. Fear, frustration, disappointment, doubt — maybe those experiences do not automatically mean I no longer love climbing. Maybe they simply mean I’m human and emotionally involved in something difficult.
Maybe I confused discomfort with the absence of love.
Because there are still moments where climbing feels simple again.
Moments outside with people I care about.
Moments figuring out movement.
Moments laughing between attempts.
Moments where I stop thinking about grades and just move.
And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe part of all this is accepting that neither climbing nor life is linear.
Maybe all we can really do is keep showing up, keep trying again, and learn how to stay on our own side while we do it.
Because maybe self-trust is not believing that I’ll always succeed.
Maybe self-trust is believing that even when I fail, hesitate, or fall off something I “should” be able to do, I won’t abandon myself for it.
And when I think back to the version of me that first started climbing, I don’t remember someone obsessed with proving anything.
I just remember someone curious enough to keep trying.
Maybe that’s the climber I’ve been trying to find again.
