Every year for the last 5 I've taken a solo camping trip. Nothing extreme, just the comforts of an Ontario Provincial Park with whatever I can stuff in whichever vehicle I take with. Some years have been less impressive, others more. There is never any real goal in mind, it's just an opportunity for me to step outside of my day to day life and find (ideally) comfort in solitude.
Seldom is that the way things go, however.
Truth be told, when I'm out here I'm lonely, and I reflect on a lot of things in my current circumstances, including my relationships with family and friends, as well as my own perception on various aspects of my life -- work, fitness, mental health -- that kind of stuff.
While I'm here it often devolves into me struggling to feel comfortable with myself and my current circumstnaces, regardless of whether or not they're going well. Realistically, they're always going well. I've become more and more comfortable in life as the years have gone one. A lesson my mom always tried to tell me -- I'm not sure if it is generally because of where I am in my career and capacity for creature comforts, or if she knew that as time passes the bar for comfort lowers, making it much more attainable, regardless of what you're up to.
What always strikes me, however, is that I never feel good. I feel anxious and worried, but also heavy with stressors that aren't something I even need to be thinking about during these times. I haven't figured out if that's a good thing or not, because I don't recall a time that spending as much free time agonizing over things that I can't take any action on has ever helped out. Maybe when I return to "normal life", I'll have had some conversations in my head and it will make it easier to do Thing X when it finally rolls around. I'm skeptical.
So what does that leave me to do? Drink beer? Take edibles? Read and write? Maybe fuck around with some art?
All of those things, actually, and almost certainly in that order.
So -- that's the update. That's the big conclusion of a couple of heavy feeling paragraphs. I'm going to continue doing what I always do. Sit. Ruminate. Drink. Consume. And try to produce something of value. Only a handful of people got to see the painting I did last year, maybe I'll try to increase that number this year. No one has ever read anything I've written while I'm on this trip, but maybe this year someone will stumble across this and let me know.
I've got just shy of 2 days left in the woods. Will I make the most of it? Probably not. You're welcome to stick around to find out.
<3 flurp