A Light through the Cracks: A Climber's Story

by Beth Rodden

I was learning that life wasn’t an equation to be solved, that it wasn’t a matter of controlling all the pieces—my body, my eating, my training, my social circle, my marriage—and putting them in the correct places to achieve the desired result. I had treated myself like a robot for so long, thinking my discipline made me better than regular people. I finally understood that pursuing “greatness” didn’t fill me the way a “normal” life did. If I wanted to have a big life, I needed to live a smaller one.

Now I understand that it’s okay to have to figure things out—that the figuring out is the point, in the end. That constantly fighting to keep the freight train of your life on a specific, rigid track means missing all those little derailments—the heartbreaks and surprises and delights and aches that make up the human experience.