Coming Out of the Closet

My dearest friends and family,

I love you all. I have tried my best to fit in. I want to be like you and have the same tastes as you. I have wanted to let you know for a long time…but…I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid of the whispers and the looks.

I mean, it is no secret that I am not like most guys.  How many guys have blogs? But there is another thing that makes me different from most of the guys I know. I have been pretending for a long time, and I just cannot hide it any more.  I just don’t have the same attraction…

God made me a little different …

I am tired of playing that game. I have to embrace who I am really am. It is time. With summer in full swing, I have no choice to but to announce that..

I…

I do not like camping.

There.

I said it.

Ok maybe that is not entirely correct.

I enjoy >>real<< camping.

Elk Mountain at sunset- photo credit In The River Valley: Instagram @intherivervalley

I understand the appeal of strapping on a backpack and setting out to explore God’s creation. Sitting atop a mountain at sunset, back country camping at a lakeside with a spouse or good friend makes sense to me.

Mt. Cheam Sunrise (photo Credit from  Instagram @intherivervalley by @rachelbarkman

That is something I enjoy. I get hiking. I also get the camp-fire and swimming aspect of camping, but to cram the family into a van like a can of sardines, and set out for a week or two to set up a tent on a tiny mounded gravel plateau carved into a sparse forest, with a thousand other families, just to inevitably get swimmers itch, be eaten by bugs, and develop weird rashes, while one or more of the kids is sick at any one time from  under-refrigerated cold cuts and under-cooked hamburgers?

No thanks.

Paying hundreds of dollars to live like a homeless person and call it “vacation” makes absolutely no sense to me.

At Chilliwack Lake by @intherivervalley

Now, paying nothing and going into God’s back country is appealing, but this summer please just give me a deck chair on my patio with a good book ….and then my couch and screened windows when the pests come out. That is also appealing. That is relaxing.

No tiny mounded gravel plateaus  for me.

So dear friends. I do not expect you to understand this lifestyle choice of mine, actually, I am not sure it is even a choice.

I am pretty sure this is the way God made me.