This is the last thing I'll be posting from my high school years. Whew. I know. What a relief!
I started going to summer camp the summer before 7th grade. I loved it. At first, I attended one week of the summer and eventually went as long as they were open for business (four-five weeks). Camp was a place that spiritually grounded me (and I needed grounding!). I loved the experience so much I participated in their CILT (Camper In Leadership Training) Program. I graduated CILT the summer between my junior and senior years of high school.
Holy freakin' moly, but that was a hard summer. The worst part was that I simply did not see it coming. I was excited about it before I got to camp. Within a few days, the reality hit me... these were the last two weeks I'd be a camper. Ever. As in Forever. In two very short weeks I was going to be the "adult," the counselor, the leader, the person who guided others and made sure they had a good week at camp. Meanwhile, most of my camp friends were going to be way up on the hill in the A-frame house I'd learned to call "home" having the summer of their lives. Without me.
Have you thought about your transition into adulthood? I think for most of us it comes rather slowly. We finish high school, maybe college or tech school, get a job, and one morning we wake up and realize that we are independent. On our own. Making a paycheck, paying bills, "living the dream." In other words, it happens silently and almost without notice. So silently it's painless.
My summer was the Opposite of that.
I took a hard right turn into Adulthood and had two weeks to accept it. (Yeah, that didn't go very well.)
We always sang a lot at camp. After breakfast. After lunch. After dinner. Around the campfire. Singing was a big part of our lives. I recognize, in hindsight, that all of that music probably was one of the reasons I loved camp as much as I did. For a girl with a song in her heart, is there a better place to be????
That summer the Theme song, which we sang at least once a day, was Linger. That can't have been coincidence. God was laughing at me. I swear that must be true. I bawled my eyes out in front of the entire camp at least twice a day. All the way through that song. Every. Single. Time. It was truly humiliating when I was the counselor. My mother says I ruined my contact lenses that summer. I believe it. I cried all summer long. I was grieving. Grieving my childhood. Grieving that rite of passage into adulthood... a place I thought I wanted to go, but when faced with it... not so much.
What I learned that summer... you can want to linger, but life always moves forward. Adulthood is waiting for you (and will grab you) whether you're ready or not.
Did you slip into adulthood without noticing, or did it crash into you like a train?
