I am thankful for the support we have gotten in the last few days–and I appreciate your indulging me in a few moments to bitch and moan about my anxieties of being alone. Today was my first day of climbing alone, waking up alone, eating alone, going food shopping alone and the like. I had the opportunity to do a phone interview with John from DiabetesCare.net and when my phone ran out minutes halfway through…my usual go-to plan of poaching Stefs phone was sadly inoperable!

But last night as I dropped Stef at the gate and realized that I am not ready for her to go, I decided that the only way to avoid de-railing and becoming lethargic  and distracted is to choose to focus on the positives in this situation. Like everything I have been ranting about on here for so long, it’s a choice how to deal with any challenge, nothing more nothing less–only the name of the challenge changes. Diabetes. Loneliness. Fear. Laziness. Take your pick, suck it up and get after it! 

I have spent the last 3 days (when not climbing, sleeping or eating) editing video. My main task was to promote our grant application for the Diabetes Hands Foundation (more on that in the next week) but when I submitted my first video it was rejected due to product placement in some of the climbing shots. Initially I was pretty crushed since I had put a lot of time and effort into that (in addition to climbing and shooting more video)…but I decided to suck it up and just make a separate video for the blog out of the stuff that we couldn’t include in the proposal video–and I think you will enjoy it when it’s released! It turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

But today I decided to take a break from bouldering and dry-tooling on the retaining wall here at my sister-in-laws gated development and take a “longer” climb up to the top of Mission Gorge and test out the new GoPro Cameras. I decided to do my usual circuit, 3rd class up to the top of the gorge where a beautiful 30ft hand crack splits a prominent rock formation overlooking the valley, the bay and the setting sun. I ran a few laps unroped on this crack-the best 30 feet of climbing that Mission Gorge has (in my opinion) and felt pretty good. It really started to sink in that climbing by myself is potentially going to be a regular feature now, rather than an occasional diversion.

I began to get excited. What comes next? Right now there are a lot more questions than answers–I just know that there are a lot of possibilities and they are all really amazing! I have never been stronger, and my favorite destinations are coming up as well as a few places that I have dreamed about since I first began climbing. I have no excuses, no comforts holding me back. I’ve always wondered what I could accomplish as a climber if I totally went for it and now I have that opportunity.

As I walked back down to my car for the drive back to my sister in law’s place tonight, I realized that it has been 119 days and I am TOTALLY PSYCHED to be climbing. It’s not getting boring. It’s not getting stale. It’s getting better! Yosemite. Mt Ranier. Mt Shasta. Squamish. Smith Rock. Bugaboos. Devil’s Tower. What’s not to love? There’s just so much out there…

Lastly I want to thank those of you who have been reaching out and supporting us–it’s so awesome to get comments on the blog–like ones from real people, not Viagra offers from Russian pharmaceutical outfits. We have also gotten some contributions to the project recently too and those have been most appreciated. You all are amazing!

Now I just have to figure out what comes next. Lots of possible steps, but I have to be careful to think this through to get the most out of it…