It's Never Really Over

Before summer began at camp, I attended a week of training. And I thought about quitting. I honestly didn't think I could survive three weeks of camp, even though I'd lasted an entire summer two years before. But I kept my commitment. I survived. I have several bruises, a sore ankle, am sleep deprived, but I survived.

During training week, you are prepared for every possible situation that might happen in the cabin. I use the term prepared loosely because honestly nothing can prepare you for cabin life until you are in the middle of a cabin, until you are really responsible for 9 to 15 13-year-old girls. And they tell you during training that the time spent working at the camp will be the hardest of your life. Again, it's hard to understand the truth of that statement until you have actually lived it.

I cried more over the past three weeks than I normally cry in a year, including the tears that fall while I watch movies. There was so much that happened while I was at camp. I have so many stories from those three weeks, but I'm saving the stories. Maybe I'll write a book one day. Or maybe I'll just keep them close to my heart and remember the people from my three weeks in Livingston.

What I do know is that I can do it. Not camp but this thing we call life. I can do it, and I can make it matter. It just takes one person to spark a change. I saw that over the course of three weeks. Even if I wrote out everything that happened, I'm not sure I could adequately describe the changes that occured in my life. I know I couldn't describe the changes I saw in the lives of the people around me. But what I do know is this. Life can bring it on because if I could survive those three weeks, I can survive just about anything.