drawing sucked

We camped at the Pinery Provincial Park on Lake Huron in August last year. I had a rough night the day before we left for home. On the morning of our last day at our trip I got up early. Jacob and Paula were sleeping in. I made a fire and later after we had eaten breakfast, I got out my sketchbook and sketched the last sticks of firewood burning on a mound of embers and ash, in the fire pit.

Paula and I were behaving badly towards each other, we were wary of each other and distant. We had had a fight while strolling together on a long sandy beach. Paula used to visit this park oa lot as a child. I think she was seeing ghosts. We were holding hands and enjoying the beautiful warm sunny weather and everything was good, this is what we had come here for. The closeness turned upside with a few words and a few overreactions and we were deep into another cold wars.

We exchanged accusations and expressions of shock and hurt we retreated to enclaves within ourselves. Jacob read on a big beach blanket while Paula and I stewed in suffering. He looked up and reconnoitering our faces looking for a resolved dispute, hoping that these 2 big angry babies, dumped on his vacation, were immediately replaced by his nice parents. Every 1\2 hour or so he'd stop playing or swimming in the water and see if he could broker a peace, giving us individualized quality-time love injections. Compelled to nurse us off our misery, the impasse confused Jacob. He looked a little bored and terrified at the same time.

As they slept, I stoked a huge fire, drank Sauza's Tequila and played songs on my MP3 player. I cried into the bottle. Sitting in one of those folding chairs that you can stuff in a trunk, I looked at the stars, stared long into the fire and stumbled into the woods to pee. The area was speckled with moonlight filtering through the canopy of leaves. I wandered back and repeated this whole deal 5 or 6 more time. The air was cold damp, the campground silent.

It was difficult to draw that morning, my anger and despair over another stupid estranged night. But I do hate drawing mostly anyways. It's part of hating myself for nothing in particular. My parents have a lot to do with it. But I'm working on that.

This whole emotional scenario is a regular fixture of our relationship, a sunken sofa cushion of funk, but not as bad as it used to be. Drawing couldn't make me feel better though. If you know me you probably think drawing might be my eye of the hurricane, where I probably feel peaceful and somewhere I can process trauma and anxiety, but actually when I'm feeling this kind of sick inside, it's practically useless.

But if I had let these events drift away one more time in a helpless stupor it would have made me unbearably sadder. Having so much distance between Paula and I, our hearts, it's the worst feeling I know.