Only Because I Love You

engineer's cap by Eugenia Kim for Target, shell and pearl necklace from honeymoon, shoes by Diesel

There are a lot of things in life that I don’t like to do. Job hunting, nighttime grocery shopping, flossing, and scrubbing the bathtub are a few. I mean, life isn’t all cupcakes and kittens. But those things are necessary, and I do them without complaint.

But unnecessary activities, like free-choice, free-will things I do with my discretionary time, that I don’t like to do, are more difficult to endure without some complaining. And one of those things is tent-camping.

Tent-camping. As opposed to cabin-camping, where at least you don’t have to sleep on the ground. And where the cabin is already there and you don’t have to build it, then unbuild it after two days.

Whose idea of a fun getaway is to spend hours preparing, packing and loading the car, then drive to a campground far away, then unpack and set up camp, then unpack, set up, and cook food in an unsanitary, buggy environment? Then a couple of days later, spend hours taking it all down, packing up the car again, driving back home, and cleaning and unpacking everything? It takes a colossal amount of time and effort, and on top of it, you can’t take any good shoes with you because they might get dirty, wet, or eaten.

And for what magical experience? To sit around a campfire in canvas chairs? To put quarters into a shower in some showerhouse built in the 70s? To lie in a clammy sleeping bag listening to wolves howl and praying for sleep? To gaze upon a vast landscape of trees interspersed with other people’s campsites?

So my friends, now that I am married, I am subjected to a yearly camping outing. I do it only because I love my husband. And what does he do only because he loves me? Rescue kittens. I think it’s a pretty fair trade. More about that next week…