Mind Games

“Its going to be the same again.”

I was berating myself before I was tied in.

The battle, the struggle. That’s why I climb. 

But, I like to gain a little ground now and then, just enough to keep me engaged. 

I repeated the axioms I had stored away in a few free brain cells. 

We learn the most from our failures. 

I’m going to spend more time falling than sending. 

Maybe I’m just a poser. Like those people that wear all the right clothes, say the right words, but really like the idea of adventure more that the actual real adventure. In real adventures, there’s always a point where you wish you were somewhere else, then you dig deep, and go beyond.

“Hmmm, I go beyond, sometimes.

“Its hopeless, a deadlock I couldn’t free myself of.”

“Dude, just fall!” He didn’t say it out loud, but through the cord connecting us, saving me from busting my sorry ass, I could sense it. 

“I can’t” the voices whimpered in my head.

One day I made friends with the voices in my head. That was on ice. We had a good chat, them and I, things fell into place. I was confident, I believed. I turned them into something that drove me higher, farther, faster. 

We were in a remote corner of the valley. A two and a half hour drive to town and over an hour walk away from where we had to leave my truck cause even 4x4 couldn't get us farther. 

It was untouched ice, in a wide amphitheatre of rock. I gazed up, 

“I want this lead, it’s my turn.”

“I don’t know if I can do this, better let someone else.”

“It’s so aesthetic and remote.”

“You’re never going to be good enough.”

“How bad do you want it?”

“Breathe deep, slow, relax.”

It was D-Day in my head, the fight against the demons telling me I couldn’t seemed palpable. 

I’d been here before. And backed down, retreated. 

“I got this.”

I pushed them down, struggling, screaming, into demon hell. 

Silence.

Toc. Toc. Pause. The windchime clang of ice screws, the rasping of my breath, and thud of my heart filled my ears. 

“Protect the bulge.”

Shit, its over.

The angle went from dead vertical to laid back nothing. 

Inside, I let out an ecstatic whoop.

Weeks later, I smiled as I shook out a pump, placed a screw and clipped a stretched seventy metre rope. The smile faded, as I stared across at a familiar bulge. 

This was as far as I made it last time. Before it all went dark. Before the terror. Before I whimpered as he cut my rope. Before, before, before. This was now.

I sent a silent prayer up to the top.  

“Wait, ice is way scarier. Why can’t I let go?” He must really want me to do this, he’s just sitting there looking patient.

“This is it.” 

In slow motion I could feel every skin cell peel off the plastic holds, my shoes left tiny bits of rubber.

Air, nothing but dry, chalky ventilated air and my heart in my throat. 

I was alive, unharmed, swinging back and forth under the roof.

“Not so bad eh?” His look said.

The cold rock numbed my fingertips.

“Damn, will I hit the ground?”

I sagged against the rope.

“Too cold,” was my excuse.

I danced from the rock onto the rope tarp to get my numb toes out of my biting climbing shoes. 

Backing down, again.

My confidence was gone. What if I loose my head in a place that I can’t afford to? I’ve always been my own worst enemy.

The drive to climb was gone. Without climbing I had and was nothing, that wasn’t a new realisation. I’d lead myself into that one. What do you do when it feels like your passion is gone, when you’re too tired to care? When you’ve dug so deep that you can’t dig anymore?