I am actually typing this on a laptop!! It feels weird. I actually don’t remember the last time I went an entire month without touching a computer, but this is the first time I’ve cracked it open (to do anything other than watch Orange Is The New Black because Laren Lee is a goddess).
I think I stopped updating midweek last week. The end of the week was absolutely exhausting. I was barely able to drag myself to bed, never mind write about all of the things that had been going on. We had a ton of camper drama, like I wrote about before, and it never really let up. I actually very rarely lose my patience with kids (adults are another story :P) and it takes a long time to get me truly and deeply irritated when dealing with them. But Friday, I reached my breaking point. It was such a tiny one, too, such a little thing that set me off. It happened when a camper was talking to me at the breakfast table… and talking… and talking… and talking… and all of a sudden I knew I needed to step out. I listened to the end of the camper’s story, told her how awesome it was (which luckily seemed to be the appropriate response) and told my staff partner that I needed a minute. I went down to the staff lounge for about 5 minutes and played Candy Crush and read Facebook, haha. I just felt completely mentally worn down… I never realized what an awful age 11 is. :P I think I wrote this before, but it’s the age when kids become OBSESSED with what is “fair” and are constantly comparing what they have with what other people have and complaining if there is a deficit. It was every. Little. Thing. All the time. We had several talks about it, but it seems to just be hardwired into their brains, like they can’t help it.
They were good kids though, especially individually. It was the combination of all of them together that could be really difficult. Their personalities blended together in a challenging way, plus the drama that they carried with them just with their situations.
Friday night was our closing campfire, and just as we reached the end of it, it started to thunder and lightning. Which is a HUGE deal in Alaska, because it never happens. One of our counselors who has lived here her whole life said she’s only ever seen 2 or 3, and another staff member said they’d lived in Alaska for 12 years and this was the first storm they’d ever seen there. So it was a BIG deal to our eleven year old campers, because a lot of them had little to no experience with them… and of course, they were TERRIFIED.
I had two campers that were almost hysterical. They were wailing at the top of their lungs, and one had actually packed up all of her things and said she was going home. The storm made them scared, which made them terribly homesick. I’ve never really had the opportunity to console a homesick camper before, and now all of a sudden I was dealing with two, haha. I asked them to come with me on a walk (which I swear to god is the magic solution to most camper problems), but they said no. So I got one of our counselors who was here for her second year and who is more firm than me, because I thought maybe they needed a no-nonsense approach. But that didn’t work either. So I didn’t ask if they would go on a walk with me, I told them they were, and they didn’t object this time.
At first we walked around a cabin, where we do group hangouts sometimes. I tried distracting them, but it wasn’t working. I was starting to think I might not be able to fix this and was worried I’d have to get the camp director, but I really really wanted to solve it myself. So I told them we were leaving the cabin (it wasn’t raining, by the way, it was just rumbly and a couple faraway flashes of lightning, the storm had mostly passed) and we just started walking down the path, heading towards the dining hall, and I really had no idea what we were going to do.
But then I remembered that they don’t lock the dining hall, even at night. And that we are always well stocked with hot chocolate. :) So I told them to follow me, and we went inside. I didn’t tell them what I was doing, but I started making a cup of hot chocolate as they watched, sniffling. I didn’t want to offer it to them outright right away, because they would just say no. So I made myself a cup. I could see one of them wavering a bit, and I asked her if she wanted to try it. She said yes, so I poured her a little into another cup. And of course, she wanted more. I tried to get the other one to have a cup too but she was being stubborn. So I made another cup for the first girl, and she and I sat drinking hot chocolate as the second girl just stood there. It worked like a charm, and when I asked her if she was SURE she didn’t want some, she said in a tiny little voice that she actually did. I made another cup and told them not to tell anyone, because we’re not supposed to give hot chocolate to campers so this had to be our little secret (which is not actually true… but they liked it).
Armed with two cups of hot chocolate we went back outside. Both of the girls were subdued, completely silent and seemed a little dazed. Which is actually great, because it means the worst is over. I brought them to a clear area looking out over the lake, and told them to look at the sunset, because it was spectacular. I told them that thunderstorms could seem a little scary, but that nothing that created such beautiful things could be bad. I think seeing the calmness of the water and the gorgeousness of the sunset balanced out the terrifying picture they had of the storm in their heads. It was amazing outside. It was hard to be scared.
So I brought them back to their tent and we passed through the cabin again, where I noticed some leftover s’mores ingredients. There had to be a Hershey bar with one row of three pieces left, and six marshmallows— I pointed out how perfect that was and that clearly we couldn’t just leave them there, so we ate the chocolate and marshmallows as they giggled a little. I told them not to tell the other campers because they’d be jealous. :) Making a kid feel like you’re sharing something really special with them almost always makes them feel important and cheers them up a little. We went back to their tents and I tucked them in, and read a story to them, and they both dropped off to sleep. Success! I felt amazing, I couldn’t believe I’d done it, and that all the steps had kind of fallen into place like that, because I definitely did not have a plan when we started out.
But the BEST part of this story happened the next day. In the morning when they woke up I gave them both huge hugs and told them how proud I was of them, and how strong and brave they were. A couple hours later, when they were packing to go home, the girls walked up to me and said, “Summer? Can we talk to you for a second?”
We moved away from everybody, and one of them started, “We just wanted to apologize for how we acted last night. We know we weren’t nice to you at first and we’re really sorry.” My heart totally melted right there. They totally didn’t need to apologize, I wasn’t mad, I know what it’s like to be scared and I didn’t take it personally. When I told them that, they said, “We really appreciate last night, it made us feel a lot better, and we’re really sorry about being mean, and we wanted to say thank you.”
Anyone that knows me knows that I was totally fighting the urge to bawl my eyes out. It was so sweet. I gave them big, long hugs and told them how wonderful they were and how much I was going to miss them, and again how proud of them I was.
They, and the rest of the girls, left later that day, and as usual we had a cook-out to end the week, where parents pick up their campers from us at their tents, and then they can all go eat as a family near the main lodge, and the counselors are expected to mingle once their campers are picked up. One of my girls, who I was particularly fond of, left sobbing, and continued to do so all through the cook-out, because she didn’t want to leave. I told her to write to me, and I promised that I would write her back. That seemed to cheer her up a little bit.
And THEN… when I was walking away from that conversation, I suddenly saw a familiar face in line for food.
Mara!!!
I was SO excited! I threw my arms around her and gave her a tight squeeze. Mara came to the cook-out so she could see me, because it turns out she had an older sister attending camp that week, and Mara asked her mom if she could go to the cook-out too and see if I was there. I only got to talk to her much too briefly, but I could see her as she left. They were walking to the parking lot when she tugged on her mother’s arm, said something to her, and then started running back in my direction. She ran up to me and said in the most adorable little voice, “What’s your real name again?” (I think I explained before that we only go by camp names here, and while we’re free to tell them our real names if we want, most counselors keep it a secret; and no matter what, we are always to be called by our camp names) I whispered in her ear, “Kate.” She grinned up at me and ran away again, and joined her mom on the walk back to their car.
If I was sad the first time she left, I was doubly sad the second, because I probably will never see her again. She’s so little, only 7, so she probably won’t write to me. It doesn’t really seem like her thing. So I actually cried a tiny bit, because I’ll miss her.
Well I started out this entry intending on writing about my new campers, but that will have to wait since this is super long already. I know that people aren’t necessarily interested in some of the smaller details and more intricate stories, but I’m writing them out because they’re things I don’t want to forget and I want to make sure I can look back on someday.
Goodnight everyone. :)
