Chapter 9: Tidal Waves

It’s been two weeks since the last entry and there are a couple of reasons for that:

1. Last week my cabin and my co-counselor were so wonderful that I didn’t have too much to write about – other than how wonderful they were. I had a group of fairly high functioning individuals, a favorite counselor and program staff to work with and an altogether really great week, which is obvious from the photos.

2. I had two weeks in a row with great cabins (campers and counselors alike) and wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself and didn’t have much to write about.

Now, here we are at the end of week six, only two weeks left until I’m El Paso/San Antonio bound and I’m ready. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy my job and what I do and being on camp but my body is getting tired and is fighting with me because of it. This past week was pretty intense with personal cares and a full cabin. I had a repeat camper, one who two weeks ago was the bane of my existence and today is one of my favorites ever. Things aren’t always easy around camp but you do learn about yourself and discover true loves. For instance, I love being needed and feeling needed (a reason I think I’ll enjoy being a parent when the time comes); and this past week I was needed in various forms and I looked forward to every aching and sometimes irritating minute of it.

As I’m getting closer to the end I’m feeling a mixture of anxiety (excitement for returning to my home state and starting the next chapter) and incompleteness (sadness that I’m going to be leaving soon, pangs of regret that this will probably be my only year/summer at camp and discontentment with never really finding my place here). While I didn’t necessarily come to camp to make new friends, I will be leaving with only a handful (literally) and I look around and see that so many others are so bonded, sometimes it’s saddening. I don’t want to be part of a clique, in fact I rather hate cliques, but I would like to know that I matter to people and I would like people to know that they matter to me and I suppose that less is more but I sometimes wish that adage wasn’t so. However, if I think back and compare this summer to … well, my entire life … I’ve always only had a handful of people that I truly connected with and I’ve always loved knowing that while I may not have 100 friends, I do have 10 that I can always count on – this has and always will be the most reassuring part of my life. I guess I am content after all.

This week, I switch villages and work with some new faces, and some new campers (I have male campers for the first time…yikes)! We shall see what the next adventure is – I’m ready for it.

Until next time,

Courtney Chivon