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As a writer I see trauma can’t be captured in isolation—it can be es, quantified only in its aftereffects When you’ve grown up with a mother who has suffered froes of Alzheinosed, as often delusional throughout your upbringing, it’s hard to knohat reality should look like When you’ve suffered the abuses of family, it’s hard to knohat decency and kindness are When you are this silent, you becoers alike

There isn’t a clear “before” and “after”—there’s an “again” and “again” and “again,” only each time different, new It exhausts slowly, a war of attrition It was long-lasting, started young, and it eroded my sense of self It’s not easily understandable, because the ies don’t come as clearly

“In some ways it orse,” my therapist said to me about the kinds of trauma I had experienced versus the kinds of physical violations that are often itimized, discussed or understood I’d needed the sorts of trauitimized, to be observed “It wasn’t a one-ti that recurred”

I began seeing her only after it all became too irlfriend in past teeks, grieving her ex-girlfriend’s father’s death in a cli accident in days after,” the intake notes say

Ideally conversations about trauin and end in questions of blaree What they should reflect is consequence: that deeply felt trau consequences that shape one’s future That these consequences affect those around us That they require time and effort to heal, and they do not simply fade on their own

Finding ways to come to terms with trauma, and to heal, isn’t selfish—it’s essential Both to self-preservation, and to finding a way toharm, to oneself or others

The proble trauma, as a form of salvation, is that salvation always has the power to destroy, too To devastate The stakes of cliye of a liability waiver, even if the activity has become mainstream I doubt there are any climbers who’ve been at it for a few decades who haven’t known someone personally who’s been paralyzed or lost their life

When I think of irlfriend’s father’s death, I don’t think of the rasp I can conjure no e of his fall, the full half es I do have, of the afteres frorief

The only coht be in that he knew the risks He chose That is the great appeal of cli Unless one’s partner is at fault, the wound is self-inflicted These wounds can be equally senseless, equally difficult to live with, but at least there’s no wonder about why someone else chose to do what they did—why they could be so unknowingly cruel

With a certain type of innocent climber, I wonder, sometimes, if they’re aware of the possible consequences of their new fitness routine If the potential for loss feels real to them yet

You can’tyourself in technical terth, in physicality There’s some sort of fairness that doesn’t necessarily exist in socially constructed systeet the second chance

We carry with us the ic of gravity ht have

I finished sorting throughwhat to keep and what to discard I know that Jackson Falls bail biner will be there, waiting for me, unless soone, I’ll wonder whether its neill remember the contours of that climb, or that day Whether they’ll palm it as ain a different state, for another climber to collect

4 SEASONAL DENIAL