I'm throwing a pity party. Want to come?

I was going to do the regular Monday format again today, but I just can’t. I’m really sad today. Really sad. And I need to write about it.

I just learned that my parents sold our lake house. Maybe lake house is the wrong word for it. It was really just an RV with a room built onto the front of it. In Texas, we call them camps, but in California, people call them lake houses or cabins. It’s all the same to me.

My family has had our lake house for as long as I can remember. I think we got it when I was 10 or so. It’s just a small, quaint little place on the Sam Rayburn Lake. Growing up, we spent a large part of every summer there, including, without fail, every Easter weekend, Memorial Day weekend, and Labor Day weekend. And it’s served us well. Or at least I always thought it had.

That was until I found out my parents had decided to buy the “nicer, sturdier, newer” camp that was for sale next door to ours and put ours on the market. This might seem like a logical plan, but honestly, I could care less about “nicer” and “sturdier” and “newer.” I don’t want a “better” camp. I want our camp. I want the camp with the little back bedroom with the table cloth stapled up as wallpaper. I want the camp with the big front porch with room for everyone to come and visit. I want the camp with the fire pit out front where we can roast marshmallows and talk late into the night. I want the camp with the uneven sofa bed and the boarded up fireplace and the teeny tiny bathtub. I want our camp!

Why, you ask? Why would I want our camp with its mismatching furniture and tiny water heater and duct tape around the doors when I could have something nicer? Because this is the place where all my memories are! This is the place where I sat at the table and drew pictures for hours with my friends. This is the place where I woke up every morning and went outside in my pajamas to eat breakfast on the porch. This is the place where I peeked out the windows to watch the boy I liked ride by on his four wheeler. This is the place where I woke up every Easter morning and pigged out on candy, the place where my two best friends and I got all dressed up every Memorial Day weekend for the annual dance, fighting over the seashell mirror by the front door. This is my camp!

And seriously, I don’t care if the new camp is next door. I don’t care if it’s in front of, behind or inside of our camp. It won't be the same. And I honestly feel like a kid who wants to throw herself down on the ground and kick her legs and pound her fists and cry until her parents do what she wants. But sadly, I’m not a kid anymore, and my parents don’t have to consider me before they make decisions.

My mom said I should think of it as a new adventure, and my sister is mad at me right now because she thinks I should just look on the bright side. But I really don’t feel like thinking positive right now. I don’t feel like thinking about all the new memories I’ll make in the new place. Something that was a huge part of my life and the setting for a thousand of my very favorite days just got replaced by something “nicer” and “sturdier,” and I really just want to be sad for a while.

Maybe it will be fun. Maybe I’ll warm up to it in the future. But not today. And probably not tomorrow.

Sorry to be a bummer. Hope you’re all enjoying your Monday.