We worked well together until we didn't

Camping is 56% cooperation and 43% not complaining. The remaining 1% is looking around and noticing stuff.

I’m not much of a camper. Interacting with nature is great and maybe even important, but all the talk about gear to fight the elements bores me. I treat REI stores like Starbucks: enter when necessary or under duress. I’ve camped about 20 times in five decades. When people new to the area ask me about favorite places to camp, coming up with specific campsites seems impossible. Instead, I vaguely tell them about lakes near Mt. Hood, hills overlooking the northern Oregon Coast, juniper groves in the Ochoco Mountains, and mosquitoes infesting the Deschutes National Forest. I may be the least outdoorsy person who’s scaled Mt. Hood and made it to the rim of Mt. Saint Helens.

When it’s time to join a camping party, all I really care about is making sure my sleeping bag is where I think I left it.

In conclusion, what I lack in survival skills, I make up for in optimism. 

My general lack of exuberance for the outback created a problem between me and Karina. Three camping trips and three break-ups later, Karina I were married. And a few months after that we took an amazing trip across central Europe and then returned to the realization that Karina wasn’t interested in getting along with most of my neighbors or living in my loft in the middle of an old brick school. As Karina shed tears about how we’d never be able to find a buyer, we sold it, moved into her house, and rolled up our sleeves to paint, fix sunken floors, and install an awesome toilet.    

We worked well together until we didn’t. At first, I’d become disciplined at biting my lip and nodding. Then I began to surrender to indifference.

Meanwhile, the holidays were approaching, which brought a two-year history of resentment and unmet expectations. Hers, not mine. I would've been happy to fast forward to the first week of January because nothing I could say would help turn the corner. I’d concede on battles to win a war for lasting peace, but it was an endless game of Whac-A-Mole: I'd listen and be very present in order to address Karina’s flood of grievances, one after another—a concern to be addressed here, another there, sometimes two, maybe three at a time. During the calm of my long morning commutes, I found myself unable to trust the calm. What next? What am I missing? It was exhausting.

Meantime, my parents were losing their ability to handle day-to-day tasks, furthering a sequence of events to confirm my destiny. First, I needed to acknowledge that Karina and I were doomed. Second, my mom hurt her back while helping my dad get up from the floor. It happened because they were in their 80s and were fending for themselves.

There was no better exit plan than to be a daily part of my parents' lives. I could help them and help myself. In the universe of de-coupling, I can’t think of a more honorable parting. Bonus: the transition was very doable because I was relatively unencumbered. With the sale of my condo only a couple months behind me, my belongings were spread transiently across a suitcase, Karina’s garage, and in a small storage locker in Northwest Portland. 

I’d been staying with Karina’s mom and stepdad till Karina’s house had a kitchen sink again. That’s where I was when I texted my sister Mary.

“Don’t read anything into this,” I wrote. “But what if I moved in with Mom and Dad?”

“Do it.”