Emergency Camping Trip.

I’m taking an emergency camping trip next week.

It’s not going to be a deep-into-the-woods excursion. I’m not going to be isolated atop a mountain or beside a roaring river. I’m not even going very far. I’m going to a family-oriented campground in a town about thirty minutes from where I live. I’ll be renting a 12ft x 12ft single-room cabin beside numerous other campsites. This isn’t going to be fancy or even very scenic, but it’s pretty necessary at this point.

At four months in to this quarantine and counting, I’m at the end of my rope. I’ve run out of creative ways to entertain my five year old son, and I find myself snapping at him at the slightest provocation, or in worse cases no provocation at all. All our avenues of “escape,” from my backyard (which is falling into disrepair) to the usual routes where we take our walks, fill me with disdain. My wife tells me she’s “afraid to come home from work to find me in a state of aggravation.”

For lack of a better phrase, I need to get the fuck out of here.

Conventions provided time away I didn’t know I needed. Normally, I get to leave my house for a few days and “reset my system.” By the time I’m halfway through a convention weekend I’m missing my son and eager to get back to being a dad. Those weekends have all been canceled this year, so I’ve not had any opportunities to reset my system. Next week’s camping trip is genuinely an emergency solution to my increasingly frequent bad moods.

I don’t plan on doing anything or talking to anyone. I might bring a book or two, maybe a notebook to write in. I’m eager to go away for a few days, and judging by the state of things around here I think everyone will be happy to be away from me for those few days as well.