Climbing

So I guess I’m selling out, or giving in, whichever is less pathetic. Starting a blog; I think I’ve fought it for a good while. I’m not sure why I decided to make one. I honestly don’t believe many people will read, so this can’t lead anywhere significant, and maybe I just don’t think I’m talented enough to put my writing out into the world. But I guess I decided to quote Josh Ramsay, singer and songwriter of the band Marianas Trench: “Hey, might as well say fuck it”. So that’s what I’m doing, I’m saying fuck it.

I don’t know how to start this, to be honest, I suppose I’ll just write about the strange adventure I had the other day.

I live in a town that is known for two things: a college, and its views and activities in nature and the mountains. And the nature part of that made me contemplate the college aspect of my life, as I have been lately.

I am one of the idiotic few who failed out after their freshman year. I found out a couple of weeks ago, and well, a lot of things went to shit not far after. Needless to say, I’ve been… strugglin, super hard. And today was no different. I haven’t gone one day in the past couple weeks without crying. I woke up, I cried, went to work and tried to think of anything I possibly could to repress things just for those measly five hours. But then, I received a call from my friend as soon as I was home.

He invited me to explore this cave with him and a small group of people we know. I get severely claustrophobic but I’ve been trying to find a way to get out of my head, or to look at things differently. I know everything will work out, but getting to that point has been gnarly, and not in a good way. So that was the long way of saying I went with them.

Immediately inside the cave, I had a hard time breathing. It was muddy and dark, and cold, and amazing. My shoes were old, grippless vans and I thought they would be the death of me. At one point they wouldn’t make it up the final step, so instead of seeing the awesome view with the rest, I sat alone in the dark with my feeble flashlight. In irony of it being pitch black, I closed my eyes and practiced breathing. On the way back, we got lost. It felt as if my lungs and throat were filled with cotton, my hands and legs were shaking uncontrollably, and for a while my heart beat radiated throughout every vessel in my body, then I stopped feeling altogether; I think I was in shock or paralyzed by fear.

I closed my eyes once more and focused on breathing again. I won’t insert or impose my religious views in most of these but at this point, praying had a significant effect on me. It made me calmer and I kept telling myself I was going to be okay. We eventually found arrows and a rope that we followed to show us the way out.

I’ve never been more eager to go out into the sun! As soon as we were out, we found these cliffs, and though I was scraped up and covered in mud, I just had to climb as high as I could. I saw through the valley and the mountains around. Nothing in my entire life has been more peaceful or beautiful.

Through my day of repressing, spelunking, and rock climbing, I feel as though I’ve learned something. And I know, fuck metaphors, I’m super fucking pretentious or whatever, but I guess it helps. I’ve learned that climbing up is a lot more liberating and easy than climbing down. You have a destination, a plan, an idea of how amazing things may be in your view. Climbing up may take more strength and will, but it’s worth it. Climbing down on the other hand, to me, means either you didn’t make it and gave up, or you have to go back to the mundane.

In life, especially right now, it feels as though I have not climbed down, but more fell. I feel ashamed, I feel like I’m back to the mundane and stupid. I need to remember the excitement of climbing up. How good I felt when I reached what I was aiming for. When I climbed that cliff I didn’t know what I would see, or what it would look like when I got to the top, but I needed to see. I need to climb out of this rut that I’m in, even if I don’t know where it will lead, I know it will be amazing.

I think I’ve been struggling with the ideas of positivity in the world because it’s been super unpredictable lately, yet I’m starting to find the beauty in that. I believe we can always keep our heads up and keep climbing up those caverns and dark holes, and when we get to the surface (and know we’re alive), we need to choose to climb those mountains and those cliffs, even if we don’t know if we’ll make it, or if it’ll be worth it. We need to believe that if we climb those difficult parts in our lives, they will be worth it.

And if you have claustrophobia and terrible shoes, I wouldn’t suggest spelunking.