Step One

Ever since I got too psyched and tried again and again and again to do Love Rocket with the boys I’ve been having some weird shoulder pains.  I couldn’t do anything harder than warming up on flat walls, and I couldn’t dead hang without pain.  I also couldn’t do things that required me to put my hands behind my back or in the air, like put on a shirt.  After a month of lying to myself and everyone around me, I admitted that I was injured and went to the doctor to get an MRI.  I was sure that I was going to have to go through physical therapy and be fine in two months max. 

Today, I got the results back: extensive superior labrum tear, which the doctor explained was no big deal if I was fine with never climbing again.  I am far from okay with even thinking of that, so he suggested surgery.  The doctor explained that surgery will completely fix my problem, and I’ll be able to continue my climbing like the injury had never happened in about six months.   The next six months, aka, Bouldering Season in the Southeast, aka, the most important thing to ever occur.  My injury ruins everything Andrew and I have planned for the next six months!  We were supposed to get strong and healthy, climb in Boone in the fall, split December between Arkansas and Rocktown, then Chattanooga in the spring.  Triple Crown.  CCS.  My entire life is climbing.  And the other entire part of my life that I don’t like nearly as much is running, which I won’t be able to do for three months post-surgery.  All I have left is my job at Starbucks and going to my four classes at UT.  What a horrible, miserable existence.  No training, no climbing, no running.  I haven’t even gotten to use my new beastmaker that I drooled over until I could afford to buy it.  I’m still staring at it dreaming of tackling the 45-degree slopers and getting super strong on pockets.  All the things I dreamed of doing this season, which I’m totally fine with sharing now that they’ll never happen.  I was most psyched on Residential Streetmap, a burly compression problem at Blowing Rock.  Bitch, also at Blowing Rock, which is a super fun balance-y throw move to latch a crimp(jug) followed by a mantle that's hard for me.  Left Out at Grandmother, which is a beautiful, usually wet, crimp line that nobody really likes as much as I do.

And I had a secret desire to project Portobello and Riverdance.  All dreams that won’t come true.

And then I realized that I was looking at this all wrong.

I was just thinking of all the things I’ll be missing out on, all of which had to do with bouldering itself.  I have amazing friends, and family, and climbing isn’t the only thing that happens outside.  I can still be with my friends and stare lovingly at boulders without climbing them.  I can focus on other things that will affect my climbing when I finally get to touch rock again.  I can put my energy into teaching myself how to eat healthfully for my body.  There are so many different ways people eat; I want to find the one that fits me, and what’s a more perfect time to do that than when I have nothing else to do for six months?  I was also thinking of picking up some kind of art, like watercolor, to pass the time.  The point is: I’m stuck with this for six months, only six months!  I’m going to be fine, and as much as I feel like it is right now, this is not life altering or Earth-stopping. 

I’m going to be fine.  And deciding to be fine is the first step to really being alright.  Everything else will come with time, and I’ll figure it out along the way.  As Melise said in a recent(ish) post on her blog, “The climb will always be there. I will not. With my fragile, accident prone, chuffer body I need to remember to take care of myself and that nothing, not even *climbing*, is worth being stripped of physical capabilities. I will rest, and in good health I'll take it down. Until then, one XL serving of nutella plz…”