Mon, July 9
... Teaching in memories
I miss
my camp. I drove Laura out to Camp Evergreen yesterday, and it made me miss my camp all the more. I really wish I had the time to counsel a week out there, but unfortunately... Next year. I'll be sure to schedule a week to do it, and I'll make sure that I can go be with the junior high girls again. *sigh* I have so many memories of that place. I was there just about every summer from the time I was 8 till I was 17. That's a lot of years; a lot of memories; a lot of people; a lot of impact on my life.
I know that I remember so much of what happened. The people who were in my cabin, my counsellors, the crazy quirks that made every week different from the others... Sometimes I wonder if the kids I work with remember as much of their experiences as I do mine. I wonder if they remember me the way I remember my Sunday School teachers and my counsellors. I wonder if they look up to me the way I looked up to older girls when I was their age. I wonder... and it's a kind of scary thing, because if they remember me as vividly as I remember mine, then I'm having a bigger impact on their lives than I realize sometimes. I'm affecting their attitudes about God, people, life, parents, authority, creativity... all kinds of things. Are all my attitudes the kinds that I want passed along to the "next generation"? Some of them are, some of them aren't.
They're not listening to what I say; they're watching what I do. Which doesn't always line up properly with what I say. I wish they'd just listen to what I say when I'm talking to them, and not watch me when I'm with my friends or on my own, or with other adults... just when I'm directly teaching them. But that's not the way it works, and that's the scariest part about being an "adult."
Another weird thing to realize is that I'm older now than any of my CIT's were, and older than some of my counsellors were, when I was a camper. They always seemed so old to me, but I guess that's the way it is when you're little. They seemed invincible, and so grown up, but now I'm their age, or older, and I realize that they didn't have it all together; not nearly as much as I thought they did. They were human, too, and they had all the struggles that I do. I guess I never thought they were perfect, but I never realized just how many issues there were as you got older.
infinite || abyss
posted at 5:32 p.m.
