essay
My love affair with climbing Breaking up was hard, but liberating
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06.13.19
by AmAndA milici
Amanda Milici, who graduates June 16 from UC Davis with a degree in environmental science and management, was rock wall manager for UC Davis Outdoor Adventures and travel coordinator for the UC Davis Climbing Club.
I was in a long-term relationship for team and I got hired at the campus rock about 16 years. Despite the beautiful places wall. Despite the enjoyable moments and it took me and the amazing opportunities, supportive community, my time spent my relationship wasn’t exactly healthy. climbing still left me feeling unfulfilled. We fought all the time. Sometimes I So I put more time into it. I even read felt invigorated, alive and accomplished. books and self-help articles about overBut mostly I felt scared, uncomfortable, coming my emotional barriers. I figured frustrated and incomplete. I knew somethat if I was even better at climbing, I thing needed to change, but was afraid of would enjoy it more. losing everything that I knew myself to be. Yet, this logic continued to disappoint However, after 16 years of actual blood, me. I finally knew I needed to let it go. sweat and far too many tears, I decided to On a seemingly uneventful afterbreak up with rock climbing. noon of my senior year after two hours I met climbing at an early age. at the climbing gym, I decided Family photos show me at that it was time to break 4 or 5, halfway up an up. Some may call this unknown rock in Joshua the moment I gave After 16 years Tree with dad—an up, but I call it the enormous smile on of actual blood, moment I gave in—to his face—belaying sweat and far too the desire to explore me from below. An a new identity that many tears, I decided avid climber himself, wasn’t centered he took me climbing to break up with around something I all over Southern rock climbing. did not enjoy, that did California. not force me to live up to I loved going because the expectations of others the trips gave me opportuniand that freed me of fear, ties to spend time with my dad frustration and the void. and allowed me to explore California. My breakup with climbing has But every time I tied into a rope, I felt been a smooth transition, filled with an immediate need to get the climb over self-discovery and growth. I even met with. someone new. Last October, I competed Still, climbing quickly became a part in my first triathlon, and it was love at of my identity. My high school friends referred to me as the girl who rock climbed, first sight. I revisit climbing every now and then, and my Facebook photos often featured especially with my dad. My friends still me halfway up a cliff or boulder. More climb, and I still work at the rock wall, importantly, it was a part of the persona by but I no longer feel trapped. Letting go which I knew myself. If climbing wasn’t was the best decision that I ever made. there, I’m not sure what else was. It taught me that breaking up doesn’t During my first two years of college, always mean giving up. Ω I helped create the UC Davis climbing