This week was so rough. On Sunday when campers arrived, I felt really stressed out trying to greet everyone enthusiastically but also pay attention to everything ever (specifically medicine) and then a camper showed up with a walker and moved really slowly which is not okay at Camp. So when Leslie asked me how I was doing, I had to fight within myself to not break down on top of her shoulder.
Then Monday happened, and I was just so tired all of the time and I got really frustrated when trying to work with a camper and ending up crying in front of her. Which did not speed up the process of me convincing her it was time to go. On Tuesday, I was irritable and sleepy. I was not my nicest self. Then on Wednesday, I decided on the perfect hiding place to save for one day when I absolutely can't take it anymore and need to go away and not be found. Thursday, I had time off and it was wonderful and renewing, and then Thursday night was crazy and Friday morning was worse and then all day Friday I just kept on getting wet because it would not stop raining. And then today, Saturday, all of my campers left. And, to be honest, I was ready for them to go. I was sad to see them leave, but I was just ready.
In other words: not my best week. It wasn't my worst week either, but also not my best. A lot of my campers were honestly just annoying and frustrating and I didn't feel like being patient with them and explaining to them the reason that it's totally not okay to bite people. So instead, I just harshly told them to not bite. Most of the time the way I felt about my campers was this: I loved them, but I didn't necessarily like them all the time.
Included in my life plan is working as long as possible at Camp. But at one point on Friday, I realized that maybe I'm the worst counselor ever. I had never had a thought this drastic before. I've had doubts about myself before, but now I was thinking that I shouldn't come back to Camp after this summer. I was thinking that I was not cut out for this and absolutely no one was benefitting from my being here and that the reason no one had told me this was to spare my feelings.
It was so frustrating. But then I was convicted/encouraged. Concouraged, maybe?
Because I'm more annoying than the camper who asks me with incredible persistence to inject hemorrhoid cream into her butt (which I just as persistently refused to do. Because no.). I'm more frustrating than a camper who won't eat anything but peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. I'm more tiring than a camper who legitimately cannot sit still for longer than two minutes. I'm more depressing than a camper who doesn't know better than to use the f-word when mad. I'm more hilariously exhausting than a camper who laughs so hard she poops her pants all the time. I'm more slow (and heavy) than a camper who needs to be pushed in a wheelchair everywhere she goes all week long. I'm more irrational than a camper who won't get out of bed to go eat breakfast in the morning even though she admits how hungry she is. And I'm more loud than a camper who has no talking voice, only a yelling voice.
And yet, God gives me grace. He chooses to look past all those things about me and love me. Even when I know better than to do all the things I'm doing and I'm honestly just testing how manipulative I can be. And for that I am forever grateful. So I can express my gratitude by doing the same to my campers. I can love them and love them more and continue to love them until they leave me. Despite the fact that they're being annoying on purpose and they know exactly what they're doing. I can just smother those babies with love.
I realized last week that not a lot of campers are sang lullabies and tucked in at night. And then I had one camper this week who was really annoying. Seriously. Just so annoying. It was easy to be impatient with her and tolerate instead of enjoy her company, but then I realized that probably everyone she knows is like that to her. Critical and short and unpleasant. So then I decided to do my very best to be as patient with her as I could. I was about 60% successful. So all of that was my conviction.
And then came the encouragement. Every Friday night, all of the counselors and supervisors have a meeting to plan for next week, and before the meeting is officially started, each counselor gets a Tajar, which is kind of a run-down on the past week. So we read the front of our Tajars, and then on the back of it, we write any suggestions we have for Camp to be improved and then kind of just how we're feeling and doing. Mine is always really long because seriously, there are a lot of emotions in my heart and brain all the time. After we're done, all of the supervisors read our Tajars.
So last night, I wrote in my Tajar about how discouraged I was for most of this week. And then later, one of the supervisors came up to me and told me she loves getting to read my Tajar, and then I kind of almost broke down on her and she was so encouraging. She hugged me (I've discovered that I need more hugs than the average person. I require a lot lot lot of hugs all the time) and then told me that she'll hug me anytime and it was just what I needed. And then today, it was time to get ready for next week, and one of my co-counselors told me how excited she was to work with both me and the other girl we're going to be with. She said that we're both good with campers and she was so genuine and I realized that maybe I can do this. Maybe I am a partly adequate counselor.
Conclusion: everybody gets sad sometimes. And yes maybe you have things to work on in your life and you could have been a better counselor this week but that doesn't mean you're the worst person in the world. And that is all.
Love,
Lauralicious
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