All the counselors and cit’s (counselors in training) were at the base of Red Rock, a seventy foot high climbing rock in Gloucester MA. We were going to be belaying each other and climbing and repelling that day. I was very nervous even though I had belayed before and had climbed and repelled before too but I had done it as a camper. I kept looking around trying to gauge how everyone else was feeling. Everyone else seemed pretty nonchalant except for my friend and fellow cit Maisy. She was thirteen and I was fourteen. She was freaking out to like me and we kept checking in with each other and whispering things like, “I’m freaking out!” “Can you believe we have to belay Roger!” Now I was glad I wasn’t the only one who was nervous to belay my fellow counselors and even the director of the camp. I had belayed kids because my sister taught me before but this was next level. My sister was there too and seemed eager to try it. She had more experience belaying than I, she was going to be a junior counselor this year.

Suze got to go first and belayed our director Roger as he climbed up the zipper, which was the big crack in the face of the rock that was the most popular of all the climbs. “He must really believe in Suze if he is letting her put him on belay,” I thought. I knew she could do it though. I had seen her do it loads of times with success.

She was holding her own and I remember watching when all of a sudden Roger fell (it was probably a pretend fall but still) and Suze had to hold his weight with her smaller sixteen year old frame. She held him but she started to get pulled off the ground by his weight. He had to instruct one of us from the climb to brace Suze so she wouldn’t get lifted off the ground.  He wanted to make this point that even smaller people can belay bigger people and it works. It still scared me. I didn’t want to have to try and belay Roger.

Luckily, I got to belay my sister, and she belayed me. I was happy to do so. I encouraged her as she made her way up zipper. It was a struggle to keep up with her but I did and Roger was there cheering me on and ready to brace me if she fell so I wouldn’t go up in the air. I was fourteen and just a cit. He was nice to me. I felt proud that I had conquered my fear and even though I didn’t have Roger on belay I still did it. I got to repel that day and show off my skills going down the rock. I always loved the feeling of pushing off the rock and then landing farther down on the rock as I went. A powerful feeling to trust the ropes and just let yourself go. Nothing like trusting and being trusted. Your life in someone else’s hands and theirs in yours.

The more I thought about it the more nervous it made me but I did it.