back on crack

J-crack, Lumpy Ridge, Rocky Mountain NP - photo by Carlos

I want to say this upfront: coming back to the United States is great.  I missed all my friends, my coworkers, and all my favorite places.  Nowhere else are you going to find a country where almost everyone is an immigrant from somewhere else.  Truly a hodgepodge of nationalities and cultures.  I really didn't appreciate the diversity until I went to China this last time.  I missed the chaos shopping at Market Basket.  A cup of cappuccino at Simon's.  A nice bowl of authentic pho made by Vietnamese.  And a well run office!

Most important of all of this, is that I'm back on crack!  And I love it.  Hand cracks and finger crack and toe jams.  I almost forgot how to do it because I had been doing face climbs for the last two months.  It had been a while since I climbed multi-pitch trad climbs that it felt like the first time again.  It's like falling in love for the first time.

I stopped by Denver on my way back to Boston from Asia to go do some more climbing with Carlos.  The climbing at Eldorado was so amazing two months prior that I was really looking forward to going back to Colorado for more climbing. Carlos and I went to Lumpy Ridge at Rocky Mountain and climbed the 4-pitch J Crack.  It was a lot of fun, and included a scary (for Carlos) slabby 10a pitch.  I fell back in love with climbing instantly.  Alright, alright, I'll admit it.  It wasn't just for the climbing.  I was also really looking forward to seeing Carlos again.

Perhaps both of our expectations were too high of each other.  Perhaps it was just not meant to be. Within three days of being together, we both got somewhat sick of each other.  Incompatible is the best word to describe the situation.  I was surprised, but it was mutual.  For the last two months in China I had mentally carved the days down on my imaginary wall as if I was imprisoned in another country, waiting for my release date.  But once I got released, I couldn't get back into society and behave like a normal human being.  I was having fun in China, and worked hard, but it still felt somewhat trapped.  I didn't expect that I would have a real bad case of reverse culture shock.

I was so deeply engrossed in my work adventures in China this trip, that I had a hard time snapping back to my old self.  I also worked in isolation most of my the time in China, thinking deeply about every step of my work.  I could not loosen up, and I was still constantly thinking about my work.  What did I accomplish, what did I experience, what could be better, and so on.  I had temporary amnesia and forgot how I used to be.

I forgot to have fun.  I really did.

Coming back to work in Cambridge, I felt a similar sense of confusion.  I was glad to be back and I looked so relaxed that I probably didn't look like I'm working that hard.  The truth is, my experience in China has pushed me to a different level of stress tolerance.  I also felt some frustration: why couldn't ___ understand how I feel?  Can they be a bit more sympathetic?  Do you know how hard I worked over there?

In time, the shock will wear off.  I will be back to my old self.  Going back to Metrorock was probably the most familiar to me.  I truly felt like I was home, more than going back to my apartment.  But I have learned new things about me, new experiences, and my limits.

As my favorite travel blogger Chris G. said:

There’s only one option: you must learn to keep some of the memories in your own heart. This is hard to do, because you want to share everything with the people you love… but even as you tell the stories, you realize there’s an unresolvable gap between an experience and its retelling.

It’s easy to begin doubting yourself, wondering if life on the other side was really that interesting, or if things really happened the way you imagine them now. Doubt your doubts! What happened was real; it just can’t always be passed on to people who weren’t there.

It's like many of our rock climbing experiences.  You will never be able to explain to a non-climber or even sometimes a fellow rock climber what adventures you had the weekend prior.  Because it is difficult to retell your whole experience to them, and they probably won't understand either.

But you know, that what you had was precious, and that memory will always be yours to cherish.