Everything happens for a reason, and part of that beauty of life is that we're not allowed to know those reasons for certain.

I certainly made mistakes.

When we find inspiration, we need to take action for ourselves and for our communities. Even if it means making a hard choice, or cutting out something and leaving it in your past.

A crystalline moment shatters, and the world is a different place. Where there was confinement, now there is release. Recoiling from my sudden liberation, my left arm flings downcanyon, opening my shoulders to the south, and I fall back against the northern wall of the canyon, my mind is surfing on euphoria. As I stare at the wall where not twelve hours ago I etched “RIP OCT 75 ARON APR 03,” a voice shouts in my head: I AM FREE!

Perhaps it’s time, I muse, to close those chapters and remember the enduring lesson of my entrapment: that relationships, not accomplishments, are what’s important in life.

When I climb a fourteener, a 14,000-foot/4,260-meter peak, in the winter by myself, I leave an itinerary and information about where my vehicle will be parked and the name of the county sheriff to contact in case I don't get home.

I feel like I'm climbing as well, if not better, than ever.