When you are dying of thirst at 3:00 in the morning....sleeping outside.......in the outback........

So I am already not a huge fan of the dark. I mean, I am not totally scared of it, but I would prefer not to have to walk out into the pitch black..ever. So one of the nights I had a few beers with the guys after dinner and then went “home”..aka walked over to my tent trailor that I am sleeping in. My job is to turn the generator off before I go to bed, as it is on the way to where I am sleeping. That alone I find hard to do, and takes two flashlights and a lot of inner chatting to myself “you can do this, there aren't any snakes in that huge pile of boxes, a hugs spider is not going to drop down on your head, a kangaroo is not going to come out and punch you because you are on your period”...yes these things all run through my head on the 15 second walk to the generator. Then once I have turned it off I run faster than I ever have in my life back to the tent, unzip it as fast as I possibly can, and then jump into bed. I then try to think of a funny movie in my head, and not all of the scary movies I have seen about creepy people killing people in the middle of no-where....

Well this night I did my usual routine and fell right asleep. Then I started having all of these vivid dreams about how thirsty I was. Finding a huge glass of water and chugging it. Finally I woke up wth the driest mouth ever!! I needed water! The thought of even having to go outside for a pee made me shit my pants (#nevertrustafart)so thinking that I would either have to walk about 50 steps to the right to the Ute where I knew there was a bottle of water, or walking about 50 steps to the left to the rain water basin- that was VERY close to the treeline..aka nature...aka more places for poisonous things to hide and then jump out and get me....

Ugh...

I tried to go back to sleep but I was at that point where all I could think about was water and I knew that I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep I was so thirsty. I thought about my options, trying to think about which one was less terrifying. I opted to go to the Ute...less change of scary bush animals.

I put on my headlamp and turned on my flashlight. Oh god...this is ridiculous. I started to think about what I would do if I saw a snake. Do I just stand still? I surely can't out run it...do I throw my flash light at it?Pee on it? Oh jesus...Emily stop thinking about snakes!! (to be fair I have seen about 4 King Brown Snakes which are HUGGGGGE and VERY POISONOUS!!!)

I could honestly hear myself breathing. “Emily, stop breathing so loud! Jesus, you are going to wake up the dog, who will bark, and then wake up the family.” Then I was holding my breath....”Emily..breathe fuck..you're gonna pas out, and then the spiders will smell you and come and eat your body!!!”

It is quite scary when there are so many things around that you know CAN kill you. Haha.

Anyways, I finally got to the Ute, got the water, and ran so fucking fast I almost tripped over my giant size 11 feet (ok, but I AM proportioned...thank you )

Fear is one of those things that can stop you, parilyze you, hold you back, and make you realllly thirsty. Haha. When i got back to the tent trailor I thought about it. Hey...if I can do THAT, then I can do anything :)

Tonight I brought a giant bottle of water to bed......

P.S My first night in the tent I thought about what I could bring in to pee in, so I didn't have to go outside. But from experience I can be a messy outdoor pee-er (is that a word?) and I didn't think that Wayne and Rebekah would appreciate me urinating all over their brand new tent. (you think urine would repel insects?? (that's an inside thought that just came out...haha. You're welcome)