When Does Climbing Stop Being Exciting ?

As a child and youth I remember climbing everywhere.  I remember the joyous feeling of being on higher ground, enjoying the views from "up here" ... wherever here was at that time.  I was always the first to volunteer to climb on our roof (or the neighbor's for that matter) to retrieve stray frisbees or lawn darts or whatever we'd been tossing around.  I saw big trees with low enough to reach limbs as an invitation to see how high I could ascend before my mother would call me back down.

Somewhere along the way I have lost those desires and they have been replaced with irrational fears of plummeting to my death (or at least major injury).  This has happened without any reasoning or logic.  I haven't ever fallen from anywhere high (there was one incident with a window well that scraped my legs up quite badly ... but that was only from ground level so it doesn't make sense how that would impact my height paralysis).  I also haven't seen or been close friends with anyone who has suffered severly due to a fall from heights.  To be fair, it's not a fear of heights as much as no desire to climb any longer.  I can be in a tall building looking out a window, or enjoy breathtaking views from the edge of the Grand Canyon.  I just don't like climbing higher any more.

A few weeks ago I was using one of my "tall" ladders to change light bulbs in our elevated kitchen ... and I was dreadfully nervous even though I was three steps from the top of the ladder, with no real likelihood of accidental falling.
I just don't understand why this is so scary to me now.


Song Of The Day:
I recently cleaned up my shelves of CDs, finding several with some great tunes I forgot I had.  Today's song is "When You're Falling" by Afro Celt sound system, featuring Peter Gabriel (of course) on lead vocals.  The video is pretty cool too, although I feel like there is some deeper meaning to it which I can't really understand.

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