I am petulant about vacation.

The last several years have been a whirlwind of international adventure: road trips to San Francisco and Portland, two trips to London, a week in Cuba. These were among my first ever “real” vacations, and I developed a taste for them – did you know it’s FUN to go to exciting places and be all carefree and shit? I had no idea! .. but now that I do, I don’t know that I can ever go back.

Sadly, my reality doesn’t have me jetting off to the UK every time I run out of mascara. Knowing that a trip to London for a third year in a row was probably not in the cards (stupid cards), I planned a simple road trip that would allow Ed and I to spend some time on the coast and in California. The trip never happened for a variety of reasons, so we came up with a less-excited-but-still-fun Plan B: taking our scooter/motorcycle to Victoria, and riding around the Island for a few days. It’s no San Francisco, but it’s one of my favourite things in the world to do. We wanted to make it feel more like an actual vacation, so we were going to get a hotel for a few nights instead of staying in my mother’s horrible basement suite .. but certain financial uncertainties arose making the expenditure unwise. Still, it’d be fun to ride around even if we had to stay in the Basement Suite of Dank Sweaty Hell, so Plan B was looking pretty good.

Then I got caught riding Lola without a Class 6 licence. While we COULD still throw caution to the wind and go anyway, neither of us feel like thumbing our noses at The Man to that extent .. so both Plan A and B are shelved for the year, and I am sad.

But wait! Ed has an idea! “Don’t be sad,” he says. “We can go to EDMONTON!”

If I was merely sad before, I am full-on sobbing now: I am barely okay with not going to (or existing in) London. I can live without driving down the coast and exploring the parts of San Francisco we missed before. We will ride to Victoria eventually, and it will be even better when it’s legal.

But to not do any of those and replace it with a trip to EDMONTON? In the armpit of summer? And think that I would be excited about the adventuresome possibilities that await?

You’re hilarious, universe.

I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO EDMONTON. I feel bad about not wanting to go. There are many excellent reasons – okay, 1.5 excellent reasons – actually, 1 excellent reason and 1 tasty reason – to go: we could visit Ed’s parents, whom we haven’t seen since their trip to BC in 2011. Also, we could eat donairs. And that’s IT.

It’s true that I am somewhat biased against all of Alberta, for reasons that I don’t fully understand myself: alls I know is that when I think about going to Edmonton, my insides get all panicky and I am awash with dread. Ed is very familiar with my extreme distaste in spending my hard-earned vacation days sitting in someone’s basement with nothing to do because it’s hot as balls outside and also it’s Edmonton, but he’d really like it if I was okay with this. I would too, because it would certainly be easier. Unfortunately, there’s a very loud brat living inside my head who can’t get over how my only vacation this year went from London, to San Francisco, to Victoria, and landed on Edmonton. It makes me sad. I want to go on vacation to have happy fun adventure times exploring new places and seeing neat things, not visiting family. All of Ed’s friends and relatives now have children, and I don’t want to spend my Fun Times pretending I’m interested in babies and backyard landscaping. I’m fully aware that this is a shitty way to feel, but I am fundamentally broken in many ways and family freaks me out – so not only would I not be somewhere exotic and fun, I’d be desperately uncomfortable the entire time. I don’t want to subject myself to that, let alone as my only fun getaway this year.

This is stressing me out. I love Ed’s parents and want to see them more often, but I don’t want to go to Edmonton.

What to do?