I grew up looking forward to one thing during the summer: Camp. With slogans like “the best two weeks” and feed-back from kids saying things like “I bawled my eyes out for four days when I got home” and confirmation from the parents, “my son hasn’t stopped talking about anything else for the past three weeks”, it’s pretty apparent that I’m not the only one who enjoyed camp. There are certain feelings and experiences that you can get no other place. Whether your camp was located in the Texas hill country, the Arkansas woods, Upstate New York or even in the mountains of Colorado you undeniably miss these eight things.
1. The feeling you get when you’re arriving to your destination. It’s a weird mixture of nervous, excitement, anticipation and just plain joy. The moment you’ve been waiting for the past 364 days has arrived. Picture it, the front entrance of camp appears just around the bend. The small tingly feeling in your stomach rises to full blown monarch butterflies and you don’t know if you should throw up or start yelling with excitement.
2. It didn’t matter if it was 9 o’clock in the morning, sugar is always an option. When you were a kid you didn’t have to worry about your caloric intake or how many weight watchers points this or that was, you’d slurp down an ICEE with the best of them. You wouldn’t know it, but you’d burn those calories off right after the giant ice cream bar was consumed during a game of dodge ball or tennis. Any women older than 20 wishes they could eat anything and everything just like they did back in the day, including me.
3. REST TIME. The younger years at camp, this wasn’t always valued. When I finally was a teenager, I would be passed out by the time my my counselor said, “GET IN YOUR BUNKS GIRLS!” In the real world I would more than love to have a designated time for a nap. Can someone please get on that? Occasionally I would write letters to my mom and dad, but only if they were lucky..which was rare. The letters usually consisted of “HI MOM AND DAD I’M HAVING A GREAT TIME! My activities are water sports and redneck sports. I am having lots of fun. Please send more $ for sugar shack or a care package. Thnx luv u”
4. How it was perfectly acceptable to feel like your counselor was your mom and your best friend all at the same time. When I was a camper, I never realized that the counselors were actually like two years older than me. Looking back, I guess they didn’t know everything, but at the time, I was convinced that they were the smartest people in the entire universe. They could answer simple questions like: what are we doing this afternoon? what cabin is so-and-so in? how much time do I have before dinner? They also answered some pretty great questions about God and boys. I always looked up to these girls with the highest admiration. I just wish that I was able to stick around long enough to be one as well.
5. Your BFFS/Cabin Mates. The first thing I would always look forward to when going to camp was seeing the friends that I had made the previous summer. Although I’d only spent increments of two weeks at a time with them, I felt like nobody knew me better. From someone to go to the bathroom with, to someone who will really speak deeply with you about their revelations about God during cabin time the Camp BFF never fails to just..get you. Sure, cliques may have come about in the cabin and sometimes there was annoying drama, but at the end of the day, we stuck by each other.
6. The unity of the entire camp when they were all gathered, singing a song or cheering for a cause. When I went to camp, there was this nightly get-together called RoundUp. The entire camp would get together and have boys vs. girls competitions, awards for the best counselor of the day, a group cheer, a skit and eventually it would lead into singing and worshiping God. It was amazing! The entire camp singing at the top of their lungs about how great our God is, or even just the song Wagon Wheel. The energy in the room is like no other place in the entire world. Maybe your camp wasn’t a christian camp like mine, but at some point I’m sure everyone got together to chant, sing and cheer for something.
7. When your camp crush asks you to dance on the last song. Please tell me a better feeling when you were a 10-16 year old? Everyone has a camp crush and everyone had a vision of the boy you had your eye on, slowly walk up and ask if you want to dance. Then you proceed to two-step awkwardly until the song is over. Sure you don’t look at each other and sure you don’t have anything to talk about, but WOW was that dance amazing!
8. Being away from the world. Nowadays cell phones, TVs, computers, iPads..etc. have taken the world over. When I was at camp, I didn’t have access to any of it and that was perfectly OK. It was a relief to disappear from it all for a few weeks, or a few months. I don’t think I realized that when I was a kid going to camp, but now that I’m older and I can’t just go out into the wilderness for two weeks, I miss it.
Growing up sucks for many reasons. One of my main reasons I hate it is because I’m not able to attend summer camp anymore. There are so many other things that I’m sure different people miss about their camp experience. Now that I’m feeling nostalgic, I’ll snap back into the real world and finish my work BUT I’ll still be missing my lazy days at camp.
Sincerely,
The Intern
Things I do not miss about summer camp: No AC, riding in the back of trucks, feeling sticky all the time, not getting any letters, suddenly feeling conscious about your ridiculously hairy legs and most importantly, saying goodbye to everyone. But I’d take all of those things to get to spend another two weeks in the Canyon. (www.llyc.org <–the camp that I attended for 7 years)
Always the Intern 
Totally agree!!!