when i was a camper, monday morning at registration always made or broke my week. i had a list in my head of staff who just HAD to be there. the older i got, the better i got at predicting who'd be back and who would have moved on. all i could think about on the drive to camp was which of my important people would be there. as i walked around camp throughout the day, i'd keep my eye out for certain people, and have one of my happy freakouts every time i ran into one of them. but by the end of the day, there were always a few missing.
i found last summer that i wasn't alone in this.
yes, this is another of those stories that begins with "i've got this camper..."
her name...doesn't matter. i'll call her M.
M has never been in my cabin. she's one of those extra randoms who latched onto me for reasons i don't remember or understand. but she's come every year i've worked. and every year, she does the same thing when she sees me. she runs and jumps into my arms and says "i didn't know you'd be here this year!!"
and every year, she's more excited than the last.
last year was the best. it was the last week, and i had seen on the registration list that she'd be there(which had made me happy because i had been wondering if she was coming). so i kept my eye out for her all day, and for once i saw her before she saw me. at dinner time, i was already sitting down, facing the door like i always do on the first day, so i can see anyone come in who i haven't seen already. finally, with one of the last cabin groups, M walks in, and she's looking around frantically, and i'm guessing she's looking for me. i stood up to go see her, and as soon as i did, she saw me and came running down the aisle between unit 1 and 2's tables, jumped on me harder than she ever has(probably because she's obviously a little bigger than the year before), and screamed in my face "i thought i'd NEVER see you again!!!!!!! i looked for you ALL day and i was so sad but you're HERE!" i asked her "where else would i go?" she thought really hard and finally said "i don't know. but i didn't think you'd be HERE!"
when she left on friday, she asked me "will you ever not come back to camp? i figure you have to get a real job someday, so every year i wonder if maybe you got one. that's why i get so surprised when i see you."
and then i realized, i was M once.
i was a smart camper. i may have been an obnoxious one and among the loudest ones, but i was still smart. i knew my staffers were "real people" and that they wouldn't be there all my life. i always wished i had some way of knowing who would leave me each year. and i wondered if they cared. when they decided whether or not to come back, did they think about me? i didn't expect their whole decision to hinge on me, but i wondered if i crossed their mind at all.
so i sat M down, and i told her what i wished someone had told me as a camper. i said "well, i will have to get a real job someday. but for now, i love camp too much to do that. and if i ever think about not coming back, i get really sad and think about my girls that i'd want to see every year, so i don't think about it much."
and after that long speech, all she had to say was "so are you coming back next year or what?"
i told her to come back and see, and she said "well, if i came back and you weren't here, i'd be so sad. so i might not come back if i knew you weren't coming." so i told her i wanted her to come back no matter what, promised she'd have great staffers whether i came back or not, then hugged her goodbye and sent her away before i cried.
every year when i get officially hired and start thinking of all my campers that i'll get to see, i think of M. and just like she does with me, i wonder if she's outgrown camp yet.
i have a feeling that, just like me, she never will. =]
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