I shelled out the cash, harnessed up (after watched the mandatory safety video), and hit the rocks. I'm going to go ahead and say I killed it. With an exception...
You see, the second wall I tried had a monstrous ledge two-thirds of the way up. It seemed easy enough. Especially watching each of my friends do it without a problem. I had a problem. I couldn't see past the ledge when I got up to it enough to plan a successful move beyond it. I fell. More than once.
I did successfully scale many others with different challenges and obstacles with little trouble. After four failed attempts, I was done with the wall. A friend that was with me tried to get me to try again, insisting I wouldn't be happy until I mastered it. Knowing how competitive I can be, normally I would agree with her. But as I dangled from my butt harness, one of my favorite songs (All the Right Moves by OneRepublic) came to mind:
Let's paint the picture of the perfect place.
They got it better than what anyone's told you.
They'll be the king of hearts and you're the queen of spades
And we'll fight for you like we were your soldiers.
I know we got it good, but they got it made
And the grass is getting greener each day.
I know things are looking up, but soon they'll take us down
Before anybody's knowing our name.
They got, All the right friends in all the right places
So yeah, we're going down, they got
All the right moves and all the right faces
So yeah, we're going down
As much as I love to win, there's a certain beauty in admitting defeat. There was nothing in me that felt the need to get to the top of that wall. To this day, I have no regrets about quitting.
I still feel like a rock star.
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"Go Rock Climbing" has been replaced on the Everlasting Bucket List by "See a Linkin Park concert."
