#field trips

Stopping in the woods on a snowy evening

Having lived in e woods for 26 years, with a front-row perspective on whitetail deer traffic, I've acquired a natural interest in their comings and goings.

Some seasonal patterns have become obvious. For example, the frenzied movement of the fall mating season yields, in January, to a period of "yarding up."

In these lean times, deer gather in large groups in areas of dense cover (cedar thickets, for example) where they hunker down, carve out trails in the snow to their food sources and concentrate on conserving energy.

Wherever that is locally, it's not on our property. This time of year I often go weeks without a glimpse of a deer and, to be honest, I miss them.

Then, for reasons known only to them - sheer boredom, maybe - a group forms and goes on a field trip.

Kids are already eating. They're digging out food and chatting up a storm. I'm feeling like I'm gonna have to press my fingers into my nose to stop myself from gagging. I don't feel good.

My head hurts. Physically, my head hurts. It's being dug into by the stiff as a board seat in front of me. I've pressed my head to the seat in front of me to calm down, and it hurts. It hurts so bad. It's making my scalp so very itchy. Oww..

I'm boxed in. The gap between my legs and the seat in front of me is nearly non-existent. My arms are either bumping into my dad or into the buses windows. I feel cramped and boxed in and trapped. I feel awful.

There's no seatbelts! The small voyago buses usually have seatbelts. These big orange ones don't. They accomodate ridiculous sizes and yet they're lacking in seatbelts. If the bus jostles, my phone is gonna fall out of my hands and crash on the floor. I could have accident like this. Seatbelts are protective, damn it! Where's my fucking seat belt!? Where is it!?

I don't want to keep writing when there's a risk I could lose my phone if the bus jostles. But the kids are getting really noisy, and they're making me want to scream. Even with my noise cancelling headphones, sound carries. Sound really carries. I feel like I'm going to be in unending torment. Unending torment.

We've just started moving. Apparently this bus ride is gonna be nearly 50 minutes. I've already screamed at my dad and blamed him for not warning me sufficiently. I feel bad about that, but I don't think anything I said was wrong.

The teacher (if I can call this fucking asshole that) is humoring them all. I hate him. It's getting noisy and smelly. I wrote about all this during our last field trip. I hate the buses. Remind me to dig that note up later. In the meantime, we've started moving. And I'm scared of dropping my phone, so I'll put it away for now. But I hate this. I hate this. I hate this so, so much. I'm guilt tripping my dad right now, and I do feel bad. But I'm too angry to stop. I'm already sweating. My head hurts. I've almost dropped my phone because we're driving over tons of construction. I hate this, I hate this, I fucking hate this!!! I'm putting phone away now.

Actually no.. I can't do that because I'm stressing too much and notes help me cope. They also help me remember everything, and they record it for future posterity (and for therapy and stuff). My dad put a bag in my lap so my phone would be protected against dropping. But I still don't feel safe sitting here and writing. So let's try to keep this brief.

I have no seatbelt, but we're driving through tons of train tracks and construction. My body is basically constantly shaking and jostling. I feel unstable and unsteady. And even still…I. have. No. Fucking. Seatbelt!!!

The kids are being noisy and…nope. Too much movement. Can't write for now. Feel unsteady. I'll come back when it feels smoother on the road. So bumpy. So much constitute I mean construction. I can't type well. I can hear my voice rattling and vibrating. The vibration is almost worse than the noise of the kids. I'm putting the phone away soon because I can't type under conditions like these, but I hate it. I really, really hate it.

I can't believe a few short months let me forget how awful these buses were. In November or whatever I knew these buses wsre awful, but I forgot how bad.

Well, we're there now. I'm sitting in the sunlight, but I'm still freezing cold. The bus never got better. It never got better. Even out in the roads outside the city and in the countryside, the roads never got better. Bump bump bump all the way. In order to cope I had to basically shut my brain off and go nigh catatonic like I was trying to nap. They made us take a group picture, and all I wanted to do was sit down and breathe.

It's freezing cold out here. I'm having a meltdown. I'm having a full fledged meltdown. I'm screaming at my dad. I nearly threw the camera onto the concrete. My hands are nearly hypothermic. But I have to write. I have to write. I have to. I want to go home.

I'm having a meltdown. It's really quite pretty here, being that we're on the water and the rivers/oceans/lakes are beautiful. But I'm having a meltdown. I'm close to tears. I've been screaming at my dad, and part of me just wants to sit on a bench for hours until I get lost in the waves. I'm also privately quite scared of running into nana here, but I do technically have worse things on my mind.

It's too cold to write any more. It is seriously freezing for my poor hands. But rest assured: we're not done here. We're not done.

Okay, it's warming up. I can come back to this note finally. Now how do I catch up on everything? Let's see…we had to walk over a bridge (and I had a panic attack both times we walked over it because I was scared of it collapsing and dropping me into the ocean). I've had nearly four or five meltdowns since we got here, and I've done an awful lot of yelling at my dad. I do feel bad about it, but I also don't really feel I was too much in the wrong. I've been really stressed lately, and it was just a fact that I was going to explode because of all my stress here.

It being too cold for me to write down all my feelings immediately contributed to the meltdowns. I've gotten so used to writing as a coping mechanism that not being able to write is a killer. And the fact that my back hurts when I walk for too long (because I'm standing straight up when I walk) is another problem. So yeah, I've had lots of issues today. I had another meltdown and an argument with my dad because he wanted us to keep walking at 12:10. But the bus comes back at 12:50, and I don't trust us to be back to the bus in time. I know we likely will be, but I'm scared of missing it and getting stuck here. My dad doesn't quite understand it. I'm not a big fan of travel and of doing stuff as we get close to deadlines. Deadlines stress me out, and I just want to be home on time and not get stuck somewhere because the teachers and the bus wouldn't wait for me. I know this scenario I'm spinning is highly implausible, but that doesn't stick my from scaring me and consuming my focus.

Make that a seventh meltdown. The geese actually ended up really noisy in a certain area, and it's getting to my senses. Also my dad dragged me out to walk on sand. I don't think he knew there was sand in the area he was dragging me to. But there was sand. Then I got stuff in my shoes. And then he acted so baffled when I said I had stuff in my shoes. So yeah, I've had my seventh or eighth meltdown now. My dad doesn't get it. He doesn't get it sometimes, although I still fully appreciate that he's trying and he does care. But yeah, the geese and the sand and the stuff in my shoes… it's all really aggravating.

My dad doesn't seem to understand that I'm not a big fan of travel generally. For me, home is always preferable. I like being home. I look forward to being home. I sleep best at home. To be fair, I haven't tried sleeping outside the home. But I have a very particular nighttime routine, and not being home would take a wrecking ball to that. I don't want to ever deal with that, because I see it full on emotionally devastating me. I feel like we do need to discuss this eventually, because I know his idea isn't horrible. But I just…travel beyond a day trip is horrifying to me.

But on a slightly more positive side (because I feel obligated to try for this one) my dad has been able to persuade me to take my noise cancelling headphones off. I've seen seagulls and geese. I've been able to sit close to the water and listen to it bubbling and running, and that's been really peaceful.

So yeah, there's been some good and some bad on this field trip. I wouldn't say I regret coming, but I do still hate the bus that's gonna be taking us back home. I'm really, really not looking forward to going back on that bus again.

We're back on the bus. Thanks to me, we were early on the bus. But my dad was being slow and nearly cost us the front seats. My dad also didn't pack up before we got on the bus, so I felt cramped again as he was packing everything up in the seats. I feel vindicated in worrying about time management now. I wanted us to be super early, but my dad was more focused on taking pictures. And that's nice, but I don't want to be left behind in a place that isn't my home! I'm frustrated. And it's still really noisy. I hate it. I hate it so, so much.

The bus has just started moving again. I have to get used to the noise and the smells and the bumps on the road again. I'm not ready for the hell that is this damnable bus ride. I hate it. It's already so loud. Now to wait for the bumping and the vibrations that make it so I can't think straight and can't hold steady enough to write more.

Well, I'm impressed. We're back in the city now. The bus wasn't all that loud this time. The kids seemed more tired than noisy. And for most of the ride, it wasn't even all that bumpy. Once we got within city limits, it was really bad. There was nearly 20 bumps in a row at some point. But it was still way better than it was on the first bus ride, so I'm amazed.

We just got home, and I'm amazed by how much my temperament has changed. Now that we're back home and I'm no longer actively dealing with the stressors of the school field trip, I feel decent. I don't know what that says about me and my temperament, but it certainly says something. I don't know if I feel perfect, mind you. But I feel better than I did for half the trip, and I think that says something about me.

My dad was going to order something out for dinner tonight, but apparently that's now becoming a hassle for some reason or another. The website isn't working or something. So this is now my ninth or tenth meltdown of the day. I thought I was calm, but then I yelled at my dad again. I'm an asshole sometimes. But I think I should feel better eventually. That's the hope at least.