C IS FOR COUNSELOR

The summer before seventh grade I went to Pioneer Girl's Camp for the first time.  Pioneer Girls is a Christian organization run through your local church.  During the year, the group meets weekly.  They have a camp somewhere in your state that your child can attend for a week (or more).  The boys have a similar organization, and used the same camp for the first part of the summer for five weeks, and then the girls got the camp for five weeks. 

I loved it. 

I went back to camp every summer for an increasing number of weeks each summer.  I even joined their 2-year CILT program (Counselor in Leadership Training).  It is a rigorous training program that requires a lot of time during the year fulfilling requirements to complete the program, as well as a lot of time during the weeks at camp.  That first year of CILT, I stayed four weeks at camp.  I spent two weeks fairly immersed in CILT stuff.  The second two weeks I was free to just be a camper again.   Whee.

I was completely unprepared for what happened that next summer.  I should have been ready, but I was NOT.   It just didn't occur to me until I got to camp that after the two weeks of the CILT program, THAT WAS IT.  We would have this big ceremony and then I would be a counselor.  There would be no more fun weeks of being a camper *ever again.* 

Every year there is a Theme Song that we sing as much as possible in an effort to remember it.  I must admit that year's song is the only one I remember.  The chorus went something like this, "Mmmm I want to linger, Mmmm a little longer, Mmm a little longer here with you..." I cried through the whole thing every time we sang it.  It was a waterworks show.  In fact, my tear ducts were always on a short trigger.  As graduation approached, I knew I didn't want to graduate.  I didn't want to grow up.  I didn't want to be the adult.  I didn't want to leave childhood behind.  I could see it rapidly approaching and I just wasn't ready to give it up.... yet.

There are people who go through life and have this big mid-life crisis because they don't know what happened.  Their youth somehow slipped by them without them even knowing.  I always knew that would NEVER happen to me.  I knew precisely when my youth got left in the dust.  It was the summer of 1985.  It didn't go easy, either.  I like to think I was a caterpillar before that summer.  That summer was my chrysalis.  And fighting your way out of one those things isn't remotely pretty.  It is a lot of kicking, crying, screaming, frustration, and exhaustion.  All the while you know something has died.  You don't feel the same, and you are mourning that caterpillar.  Meanwhile, you have no idea what you will look like when you finally get out of what feels like a Death Trap.  It's hard being caught in the In Between Places. 

It's only after it is all over that you see things for what they are.  See you for what you are.  It's something of a shock when it's all over.  You don't even recognize yourself.  Who is that?  I don't know that being.  But, it is me and it's okay.  Better than okay.   I'm a butterfly.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:"    Ecclesiastes 3:1

image found at www.weheartit.com 


Did you have a defining moment or experience that marked your passage from childhood to adulthood?  Have you had clarity about realizing your days of childhood have passed you by and you are now officially an adult?  How did that happen?  Did you ever go to summer camp?  Was that a wonderful or terrible experience? 

DAY 17: LETTER TO SOMEONE FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD

Dear Stony Glen Camp,

The first time I set foot on your grounds was the summer between sixth and seventh grade. I only stayed for one week, but I knew I would come back the following summer. I loved everything about you. I had no idea when I signed up to take Riflery as one of my three summer activities that it would turn into something that I loved. Loved and Respected. The cabin I stayed in that summer didn't have electricity; in fact, most of the cabins didn't have electricity, so I became well acquainted with where my flashlight was at all times. I never was all that keen on swimming in the lake, but I loved to slip down there alone at quiet times for contemplation and reflection. This was church camp, and I was doing a lot of thinking about God, Jesus, me, and how that picture all fit together.

One of the things I loved best was all of the singing. We sang after each meal in the dining hall. After breakfast, the counselors who played guitar strapped them on, and we sang songs about God. Some of them were so pretty that they squeezed my heart hard. At lunch and dinner, the high schoolers led the songs. They didn't stand up or anything. They just took control by leading. Those were all fun songs acapella style. At night, we broke apart by division and did an evening activity. Those were always so much fun. That meant that four or five cabins would join up (girls all in the same age range). I don't remember so well now what the fun things were that first year. I know that as time went on one of my all-time favorites was Capture The Flag. After the fun was over, we always made a campfire, sang some more, a counselor gave the message, and then we went to bed. I always slept really well at camp.

My riflery obsession eventually led me to try my hand at archery. I never was quite as good an archer as I would have liked. I also became dissatisfied very quickly with just one week of camp. One week quickly turned into two weeks. Two eventually turned four. I would have stayed five, but I was too old by that time. I was already there for the duration of camp. I liked camp so much that I took the Camper In Leadership Training Program (CILT) when I was in high school. That took two years of overall time and two weeks of camp time for two years.

That second year of camp it hit me like a rocket launcher that at the end of the second week I would no longer be a camper. I would graduate CILT, and they would expect me to be a counselor. That meant that I could no longer hang out with my friends. My days of living at Sam Grey were over. This was devastating. Sam Grey was the best place ever. Sam Grey was this A-Frame house with electricity set far away from the rest of the camp, where the high school kids lived. Sam Grey was the bomb. I never wanted to leave Sam Grey. How did I not see this coming? Ironically enough, the theme song for camp this year couldn't have explained my predicament any better than I could. The chorus started like this: "Mmmmm I want to linger, Mmmm a little longer, Mmmm a little longer here with you." We sang it every day. Check that. Everyone but me sang it every day. I cried through it every day. Two weeks of crying.

Adulthood was coming for me and I wasn't ready. They didn't put it in the manual. I checked. I kept praying for time to stop or slow down and it steadily moved forward until the day of graduation. One day I was a camper and the next I wasn't. Snap. The next three weeks I was a counselor. I was a fairly miserable counselor, but I was a counselor nonetheless. The following summer, after my senior year of high school, I came back as a counselor and it was completely different. I knew I was coming in as a counselor, so this summer was I was perfectly aware that I was a grown up now. Being a counselor this time around was a lot of fun.

Stony Glen Camp, so many of my best memories happened with you. I learned so many things about fire building, riflery, archery, people, and myself, that I wouldn't have learned if not for you. Most people transition into adulthood so seamlessly that they are only vaguely aware that it is happening. One day they wake up and realize that it snuck up on them, passed them by, and they cannot pinpoint the when or the where. That is not my story. I know exactly when and where it happened. It wasn't painless, easy, or desirable. I was dragged through the doors of adulthood kicking, screaming, and crying, because I knew that something beautiful was dying. I would never get it back and there wasn't anything I wanted more. However, you are patient and waited for me to come and appreciate you from my new perspective of adulthood. I did. That next summer I realized it was my privilege to give each girl the wonderful experience that I had every year. If they left with a heart filled with more love, faith, songs, confidence, and joy, then I had done my job.

I haven't been back to see you in almost twenty years, but I can picture you clearly in my mind. The website indicates that you have undergone some changes. I prefer not to think of that. I like to picture you the way I remember you. On those nights when I wake up, and cannot fall back to sleep, I imagine myself in Milner Cabin. It is the only cabin close enough to the waterfalls that you can lie in bed and hear the water as it goes over the falls. When I was in junior high school, I prayed every year that I was placed in Milner Cabin so that I could fall asleep listening to those falls. The sound of those waterfalls is still one of the best sounds I've ever heard.

Love,
Robin


image stolen from Miss Angie at My So-Called Chaos