Some Thoughts on Turning 25

the birthday people laughing about our failed 13b attempts

For all of our freakish similarities, my sister and I have two very different notions about birthdays. For Annie, it's not just a birthday, it's a "birthday month" full of small treats, large dinners, and pinterest worthy parties. I on the other hand take a more Ron Swanson approach. I don't like loud noises, I don't like people making a fuss, and I think birthdays were invented by Hallmark to sell birthday cards. Birthdays are just another day that just so happens to be the same day that recurs every other 364 days since the day my mother painfully pushed me out of her whosywhatsy. If anything we should celebrate our mothers on our birthdays.

That being said, your 25th is considered a "milestone." A recent google of "turning 25" brought up a plethora of buzzfeed-esque 25 for 25 lists. "The 25 scariest things about turning 25," "25 things you must know before turning 25," 25 things that get harder after 25" and so on. The related google search? "quarter life crisis." The first result page is full of people having existential crises and websites trying to help those people cope their problems.

And while I'm no stranger to existential crises -- When am I going to put this master's in Old Testament Theology to practice? Where am I going to put this master's in Old Testament Theology to practice? How am I going to pay off all this debt for a master's in Old Testament theology?  -- these moments of crisis come and go faster than it took me to come up with these examples.

Honestly, the thing that haunts me most about "growing up" is the fear of getting fat. So much so that when I recently saw the nurse practitioner about a mysterious cough I had, I anxiously asked her if my height to weight ratio was okay. She laughed at me and said that unless I was worried about being underweight, I'd be fine.

I'll be fine.

Louis C.K. drives it home,  "You'll be fine. You're 25. Feeling unsure and lost is part of your path. Don't avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it. Take a breathe. You'll be okay. Even if you don't feel okay at the time."

He might as well be talking about climbing.

a dry 10b in Little Clear

Which is why I opted to do something different for my 25th birthday. Climbing 25 routes for 25 years beats the hell out of stressing about the future, comparing myself to others, or worse, pretending I like wearing nice clothes and "going out." Living another year seems to me all the more reason to do something rad, not have a quarter life crisis and try to cover it up with copious amounts of alcohol.

And what better fitting way to celebrate the start of my 25th year than with unmet expectations? I didn't climb 25 routes for my 25th birthday. Though I was well on track -- thanks to a day early start -- weather shut me down. The clouds crapped on us and left the rock soaked, even the steep and overhangy ones.

Even without meeting my goal, it was perfect. I spent the weekend with some of the people I love most, doing what I love most: having a good time and climbing. It was spectacular.

Everyone's always asking, "how does it feel to be 25?" Most days I don't feel a day older than 17 or 21, mostly because I still go to school, I still laugh at super long burps, and I still love punk music. I just traded skateboarding for rock climbing. And I'm not some hopeless romantic with an out of control Peter Pan complex.

I'm way more mature in areas that matter: making decisions, articulating decisions, developing world views, trying to be selfless or at least acknowledging when I've been selfish, etc. And yes, I pay bills every month, I have student loans to pay off, I just spent an unexpected $1,400 on car repairs, and every so often I have to spend money on nice clothes I don't want for a friend's wedding I have -- I mean get -- to attend.

Still, I wouldn't go back to being "a kid" for the life of me. Mindy Kaling has an awesomely hilarious memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns) with a chapter titled "Don't Peak in High School" (and I would add college and so on) where she offers a critique of the John Cougar Mellencamp song "Jack and Diane:"

The chorus of "Jack and Diane" is: Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone. Are you kidding me? The thrill of living was high school? Come on, Mr. Cougar Mellencamp. Get a life.

Rocky, the world's worst crag dog
being a good crag dog

Being an adult is rad. And it can continue to be rad if you fight for it. And maybe "fighting for it" looks like getting a job and paying some bills. But it also looks a lot like spending a weekend at the Obed with your closest friends and climbing spectacular southeastern cliffs in the cold and the rain.

Special thanks (in order of appearance) to: Brent, for coming a day early to help me get a head start on my ticklist. Jesse, for festering in the rain, bro-ing down in my "natural habitat," tolerating climber lingo, and taking rad pictures. Carol from North Carolina, for being super rad and super cute (call me) and listening to me try to explain my academic endeavors without running away or telling me to shut up. Eli, for showing up and proving to the bonfire crew that I do have friends, for being my friend and climbing partner, and everything else. Rocky the world's worst crag dog, for not being the world's worst crag dog. Jamie, for being my tastefully foul mouthed, delightfully potty brained, wonderfully gutter minded friend and kindred spirit, for the belays, and helping make this weekend happen by being born the day after me. Happy 22nd birthday. Caleb, for showing up later so Carol never saw how dang attractive you are. Eric and Adam from South Carolina, for sharing beta and stoke. See you next weekend. Robin and Vance, for driving all the way from Texas just to hang out! Sorry you got lost. Muriel, for decorating the tent while we were climbing, bringing birthday cake, and always making everyone happy. And a very special thanks to Del and Marty, for the Lilly Pad campground, the southern hospitality, and making the Obed the single greatest climbing experience in the southeast.

What a birthday indeed.

Proficiency or Perfection: The Renaissance of Adequate

They say it takes 10,000 hours of “appropriately guided practice” to perfect a skill, from climbing to chess to violin to Halo. If you want to be good at something, you have to put in the time. And if you want to perform at the highest level of that something, you have to put in an inordinate amount of it. My mind immediately conjures up romantic images of a young Michael Jordan shooting hoops in his dirt driveway, a la Space Jam or Beethoven laboring over the ivories of his beloved piano. 

I can hear the words Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson saying, “Never half-ass two things, whole ass one thing.” 

Which is a nice sentiment and maybe good advice every now and then, but it isn't reality.

The other evening, I listened to a slightly older, imminently wiser, much better climber friend of mine lament that his life lacked balance. His career as an architect is skyrocketing, and truth be told, he’s one of the seemingly few adults who likes what he does. But his growing career has left zero time for the other thing that he loves and gives him life: climbing. 

Life requires balance. It requires protecting our time and energy. It might require protecting the things we love from the other things we love or the things that make doing the things we love even possible. Life is primary. Climbing is secondary (blasphemy!). And, thank God, so is work and school.  

I don’t want to half-ass anything. I want to whole ass everything but there’s only so much of my moneymaker that can go around. It’s been on my mind a lot lately, even before the aforementioned dinner with friends.

I think I’ve found a pretty nice balance between being a mediocre graduate student and a mediocre climber.

I’ll never be the academic prodigy that I admittedly and selfishly daydream about being. I’m not the brightest of the bright and sure, I could try to be a little brighter. My professors probably wish I would, just like my college and high school professors before them did. But I have passions and talents that don’t involve sitting at a desk all the time.

I’ll never climb 5.13. I’m not a strong climber. I’m not a technically savvy climber. And however much I wanted to be, it was just getting in the way of me having fun. Moreover, I have passions and talents that don’t involve being on the sharp end of the rope.

It might be nice, for a time, to be a dirtbag-at-all-cost romantic. Drop everything and live in a van or in a foreign country. But I have passions and talents that don’t involve being completely unfettered to society. (Why social norms and constructs are altogether considered “bad” by my generation is a mystery to me. And deserves attention that space does not permit here.) I need balance. I need roots.

If my buddy quit his architecture job and stopped training for marathons to be a better climber, would he? Absolutely. But I think what he needs -- what we all need -- is balance. I'd rather be increasingly proficient at a few things than endlessly striving toward perfection in one or two.

I want to be able to write a decent exegetical paper with a compelling theological argument. I want to be a proficient climber who can push my physical and mental limits in the mountains. I want to bake a pie that will knock a girl’s socks off. I want to make people laugh. And I want to have a job that I enjoy doing most of the time. But being well-rounded doesn't mean being an expert.

I want to live a happy, healthy life and I’m doing it. Here's to being adequate. Most of the time.