I’ve been looking for a preamble to this blog entry for several years… Saved by the Interwebzzzz…this article in the January issue of Climbing did it for me. http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/features/climbingmom/index.html
Susan EB Schwartz brings up very valid and controversial points about climbing & motherhood, two all encompassing, complex topics that could never be fully explored in one short post. Climbing is a lifestyle, as is motherhood. What happens when the two collide? Well, that’s what puzzles me everyday.
As a childless climber, I felt smug about my training, my climbing accomplishments and my free spirited life style. Nothing could be better than this, I thought, I do what I want, when I want. I see places precious few souls have seen (or even heard of). I have superior health and a body of steel. A “Climber” was who I was, with every ounce of my being, and I could never imagine myself living any other way. It completely defined me.
My few friends with kids would just shake their heads: you’ll understand someday, when you have kids, they would say, as they turned down yet another invitation to come climb/camp/hike with me. Surely they were being held back against their will, strapped down, bearing all that baggage. They have NO idea what they are missing, I thought.
Fast forward to October 2005, when I found myself unexpectedly expecting. I was elated. I admired my changing body and marveled at it’s ability to create life without any training or guidance from me. My husband and I talked excitedly about all the camping trips we could take as a family. I stopped climbing during my first trimester, mostly because I was always so exhausted. The rest was welcome after years of training.
On May 9, 2006, my little Utopia disappeared. Forever. Good-bye bohemian climber-girl, hello motherhood! The day my son came screaming into the world was the most important and memorable day of my life, bar none. I didn’t yet miss my old life, because I didn’t realize it was gone. This realization has been a confusing, sometimes depressing, journey that is still unraveling.
My life became whirlwind of activity and anxiety. Nothing, I repeat, nothing, prepares you for bringing home a baby! My son was a tiny preemie, we had to feed him every 3 hours around the clock. He woke up often at night, a habit he didn’t break until he was 2 years old. We never slept. Ever.
No matter, we would say, we’ll just keep our chins up, we’re tough, we can endure. We took the little guy hiking the very first day he came home from the hospital. What a sorry sight! Two sleep-deprived zombies wandering up the side of a hill, fighting over who gets to hold the baby, is he too hot, too cold, hungry, wet? I lasted about 30 minutes, tops. My body declared mutiny and just quit working altogether.
This mutiny was sustained and stubborn. Trying to train after baby? What a joke. My barely B-cup chest had suddenly swelled to something unrecognizable, and, frankly, unwelcome. The first easy run I tried after baby had me clutching my milk-filled melons, crying ow, ow, ow with every step. I lasted about a ¼ mile. Running was out until the nursing was over. I stuck, half heartedly, with weight training, consoling myself with the fact that I could still do a couple sets of pull-ups. I was proud of that too, because I weighed 20 pounds more than I did before baby. Hey, I needed to find some sense of accomplishment somewhere!
Perfect Chaos is how I would describe my life as a new mother. The training I smashed into my day was a meek attempt to add some structure to my life. I used to find solace in discipline: training schedules, drills, sprints, weights, tapers, rest and recovery. But the training was destined to fail, mainly due to the sleep-deprived stupor I was in constantly. That, plus the hormone-induced mood swings that had me feeling like a superstar one day then feeling like a barnacle the next. The demands on my body were too much, and my body revolted.
As for climbing? Well, it was the first thing on my mind, but the last thing I could force my beleaguered body and mind to do. Would you want to lead a climb while disoriented and groggy? Knowing your body may crap out just as you reach to clip that bolt? With a wandering mind rehashing the instructions left with the sitter? Even if I selected climbs well below my level, I couldn’t confidently lead them. My husband, and climbing partner, couldn’t either.
My climbing and fitness fell by the wayside; so did my confidence and my identity- shredded and discarded, like a worn out pair of Mythos. And my friends. Yes, my climbing friends were supportive and kind, but suddenly, we really didn’t have much in common. Without climbing adventures to bond over, my friends drifted away, off chasing their own tick list, and I felt more isolated than ever. My new mommy friends weren’t climbers, and thought my obsessions about climbing were odd and eccentric at best, irresponsible and self indulgent, at worst.
I felt like a Rorschach test: you look at it one way and you see a climber, you look at it another way and you see a mother. If you stare at it too long, it just looks like a confusing blob. Somehow, someway, I will make the two elements peacefully co-exist together.
In the end, motherhood is so much bigger than the self, it pulls me entirely OUTSIDE of myself and into another realm. Climbing turns me inward, focuses my energy on something more immediate, methodical, more tangible. Rock, gear, rope, summit. While climbing has its own paradigm of mental and physical gymnastics; stretching, bending and strengthening my body and my willpower; it forces me to focus so intently on my INNER self that I have chosen to leave it behind for the moment, because, really, it leaves no room for anything else in my brain. I cannot yet reconcile the INNER with the OUTER.
The decision to give up climbing (for now) was not easy, was not clear cut. It was like taking the biggest whipper of my life, feeling my stomach jump into my mouth, hoping my gear would hold, grasping at air, dangling, then realizing that nothing, not swinging or aiding up the line would get me back onto the rock. Only now, almost three years after my entry into mommyhood, can I begin to bring it into perspective. When the time is right, I will lower back down to the deck and begin again, from the ground up. The mountains still beckon, but this is where I am now, and I am content.
The author, right, with Merri on Refried Brains, Red Rock, NV
