Today camp began. Each year our drop-off has gotten a bit less outwardly emotional, although I still return home feeling a bit hollow. But I have come a long in the five years since I first took my older daughter to camp. Preparing for her first summer at camp was easy; meeting the reality of a good-bye was exceedingly difficult. I wanted a bear hug and “I’ll miss you Mama.” She wanted a quick hug and a kiss and a chance to melt into the new found group of girls.
It seemed the snow bank was still knee high at the end of our driveway the day she began packing her trunk. Each afternoon after completing her homework, she’d ask, “Can I go up and pack now?” The first several times she asked, I quizzically responded, “But your trunk is packed.” “Not the new socks you bought me,” she’d reply. Or, “I have a newly sharpened pencil to pack.” And so it went for an entire month of anticipation. Each day pulling everything out and rearranging the entire contents as the newly acquired item always seemed to need to be packed on the bottom of the trunk.
The day before we were to drop her off, she became very quiet. Perhaps the reality was beginning to settle on her. By lunch the day we drove to camp, her vocabulary had diminished to “No thank you” and “I’m not hungry.” I made her favorite meal for lunch— she managed to eek one noodle from her fork to her mouth before uttering, “I’m not hungry.” The butterflies were gathering.
When we got to camp the first stop was a check in with the nurse. The nurse, being friendly, asked what Rachel was looking forward to doing at camp this summer. “Making a friend,” was her quiet reply. Tears filled my eyes; this would certainly be a difficult good-bye. Would she make a friend? Would she be happy? Would her counselor put her covers back on when they fell off at night?
At her cabin she selected her bunk without any fuss and although I wanted to help her unpack and get settled, she simply wanted to change into her uniform and head to the playground with 2 other girls in her cabin. I worried when she only put one blanket on her bed (it gets cold in Maine at night!). I wanted to arrange the photos that she had brought from home and hang up her laundry bag and bathing suits and towel. She quickly changed, selecting footwear to match her cabin mates and headed out as a camper. We followed, her sister and father and I, and although we were close behind we watched her move farther and farther from us, finding her own way, understanding the need to belong and looking for a way to belong.
In many ways that distance has shrunk each year she’s returned to camp. For now, although she retains her confidence and independence for camp life, she also realizes the value of strong family bonds and shares her camping enthusiasm with her family. She may have moved farther from us in her independence, but she has moved closer to us in her need to share her new experiences and see how they fit into the greater web of her life.
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