During the last week of Camp last summer, on my last night without night duty, as I was walking back to my cabin to go to bed, I went to Shallow Dock. I sat on a bench in the dark under the trees and the stars. I looked at the lake, I looked at the moon, I looked behind me at the middle of Camp, lit up by nine porch lights. Each porch light was attached to a cabin, and each cabin was holding eight sleeping (inevitably snoring) campers.
I sat on that bench and took in a big long gulp of that night. I thought about how I knew I couldn't be at Camp forever, but how lucky I was to not have to say goodbye yet. I was sad but not too sad about Camp ending because I knew I'd be working again the next summer, which is now this summer, and Camp is now over, and I did not work. Yikes.
When I realized in March that I might not be able to return this summer, there were tears. I have a high level of FOMO, which did not make anything easier. I was so confused about what a summer doing anything except for Camp would be like; the last summer I wasn't working at Camp, I was sixteen. I've told every camper I've ever had that I'll always be back, and now I was a liar and a hypocrite and an abandoner, and I couldn't handle being those things.
My mind could only think in terms of all or nothing - I'd spent so many summers with all of my time at Camp, and now it looked like I had to spend a summer with none of my time there. But it turned out that I was able to visit Camp every Sunday and every Thursday, along with some extra days, too. I got to hug all of my campers and help out counselors and hold roles other than the counselor one I'd always had.
On my way to Camp that first Sunday, I felt so anticipatory. I wanted the counselors who had my old campers to be not nearly as good as me. I wanted them to have static personalities and no pizzazz, and I wanted to stand out in everyone's - campers, returning counselors, new counselors, supervisors - memories and current minds as the epitome of a compassionate, perceptive, thoughtful, perfect counselor. It felt very important to me that I stand out and be flawless, because if I didn't, I had no reason to be remembered or present.
However, when I arrived, there was no competition or preference shown by campers. I met the new counselors, and I liked them. We became friends. We shared funny stories about our campers. We became less and let campers be more, and I had no more need to be the shining star.
I had been worried before that my campers would feel like I neglected them by not being their counselor again this year, but they were delightful and happy to be with me for as long as I could be there. It was only natural for us to be together again.
While it was hard and it hurt for me to not be fully at Camp this summer, it showed me that I fit there. When I first started working and for subsequent summers, I wasn't sure if I was really a Camp person. I loved my campers with a strong emotional affection, which is what kept drawing me back to Camp, but during those times, Camp was merely a conduit for togetherness with my campers. This summer I bonded and saw new parts of Camp as a bigger picture. I had doubted before whether my personality was the kind that had much to offer to Camp, or if what I had to offer to Camp was at all valuable.
But when I showed up and saw that my help was helpful - that pouring eighty cups of water sped things up, or that I already knew where cleaning supplies were kept, or that I had two free hands with which to assist certain campers in walking from place to place - I saw that I was the reason I'd felt inferior before, and that my being at Camp was worthwhile for campers, Camp, and myself. Before I'd thought I was only beneficial for campers. I saw that I hadn't arbitrarily stumbled there in 2010, but that I was meant to be found there, and that Camp is in my blood. Seeing that was a huge relief to me.
On that night last summer when I sat at Shallow Dock in the peaceful dark, after I looked around and thought on the goodness of the things around me and the place I was in, where the lake is always green and the friendships are always gold, I thought about how, like a horcrux, a portion of my soul would always be right there.
No matter how far I go, a piece of me will always be seventeen and a CIT and feeling like Cinderella, loaded down with piles of wet bathing suits to put on the clothesline. No matter how old I get, a piece of me will always be eighteen and at the Hope dance, sweating and singing and swinging arms with smiling campers. No matter what I do, a piece of me will always be nineteen and getting up before the crack of dawn to hide treasure for my cabin to find on a scavenger hunt later in the morning. No matter what happens, a piece of me will always be twenty and running across Camp in the middle of the night because we are out of toilet paper and can't wait until morning. Again. No matter how many more summers I have left, a piece of me will always be twenty-one and crying on the shoulders of my campers when we are finally reunited and it is of the utmost happiness.
I always told my campers that they wouldn't have to have a last day of Camp if they stayed forever. However, campers can't stay forever (I know this but I'm still not completely sold on why?) and neither can I. But summer happens every year, and Camp happens every summer. And Camp is a place I will always go.
Last Monday night, I said my last goodnight to my campers. Here is what I know, and it's what's keeping me going: goodnight is not goodbye.
Love,
Lauralicious
