MLIC (My Life Is Camp)

The end-o-summer transition away from camp is never easy. Sure, there's always bird count and there's always small camp reunions throughout the year, but nothing can compare to a magical summer at Cooper's Cove. However, this summer marks a new transition: leaving camp for good (wow, writing that was really hard). For the past two years, and I could go so far as to say the past eight years, my life has been camp. My summers there are a huge part of my identity. I shape my experiences during the entire year around camp. If I pick up a new skill or learn a new fact, I always think about how I can apply it to working at The Cove. I tell camp stories to anyone who will listen, and I tell them even if they won't listen, oops. I look through old boxes of memorabilia and read through old journals and look at pictures and reminisce about all the hilarious things that happened in the collective memory of camp. And then February comes around and I get to work on (or craft) the camp application and fully let myself get excited for another summer, because Spring is right around the corner and camp comes after that.  Camp camp camp, how many times can I write 'camp'?

And now, suddenly, my time working at the best place/job in the world has come to an end. I'm 24, and finally ready to acknowledge that I want to gain other experiences during the summer. I've started a new job in the environmental education field, and it's exciting.

And yet all I want to do I be able to return to camp. I want to take all of the activities and tricks that I've learned in training here in Georgia and apply them to my morning workshops at camp. I want to go back to the comforting schedule of Reflections before dinner every day, and an Inspection Report at lunch, the Bird List at dinner, and Ashokan Farewell at the end of Folklore Night. I want my hair to smell like pond, and I want to be able to recognize by sight which logs will definitely house a salamander (I can't do that log thing at this new place and it's driving me crazy).

Maybe those things are the exact reason that I shouldn't go back. I need to push my comfort zone, I need to grow more, I need to leave what I know to try what I'm wondering about. I grew up and became myself at The Cove, and I learned more than I could ever fully articulate in this blog post. I've learned enough to fend for myself elsewhere, I hope. It breaks my heart to not go back in the same capacity, and the last few weeks have been rough because of that feeling of loss/ of feeling lost. I think that as the season here gets busy and the end of summer gets farther away and hopefully new opportunities loom, I will have an easier time of it. But for now, bear with me on my continuing trip down memory lane.

Speaking of, here's a picture that Vini sent me today of young camper Annie, catchin' bugs. #tbt