The sweet kids are often the hardest to talk to.

They don't demand attention (both good and bad) like the louder kids always do, and because of their gentle natures, they understand when the attention has to go to the louder kids more often than not. It's difficult to justify relying on the sweet kids to sit tight and be good while gifting attention to the kids who don't deserve it, but as a camp counselor of 19 years old, handling youth aged 10-15, I'm still figuring out how to achieve a fair balance in my relegation of attention.

More often than not, the attention you give to the sweet kid of the group is a knowing eye-roll thrown in their direction when another group of campers is being particularly troublesome. When you finally sit down for a conversation at lunch with them, it is only after the ill-behaved ones have been eyeballed, the co-counselors have been consulted, a headcount is complete, and you've taken a breather behind a bathroom stall.

And even then, as you sit in front of them with an exasperated sigh, opening your lunchbox, pulling out a tinfoil-wrapped sandwich and grinning down at them, you find yourself with very little to say that holds more substance than "Thanks for not being a complete and utter nightmare!"

She was a rising freshman in high school who rocked a purple pair of crocs and a dimpled smile, and spoke almost exclusively when spoken to. So I, camp-counselor, five years her senior, and master of all things to do with mature and informed social interaction, speak first.

"Having a good time?" Observe. A conversation starter that is masterful, nuanced, open-ended, and well trained.

She nods affirmatively.

"What year are you going into again?" Observe. Continuation of the conversation that is suave, subtle, and bound to lead toward fruitful discussion.

"9th," She says.

"Oh yeah, duh, I knew that," I respond. Observe. I remember things about my campers. I make them feel special and appreciated. "Have you taken Driver's Ed yet?"

"I haven't!" She beams. "I'll take it this winter when I turn 15."

See? Look at this kindling laid before my feet. Look at this unscathed, unlearned child seeking my learned wisdom about that which I've accomplished in years past. Look at this opportunity for me to spread my years of seniority and experience into the heart of the yearning youth. Observe. As I share with this camper the fruits of my learning, poured out from my gracious spirit.

"Driver's Ed is so boring," I share, leaning my face into my hand and affecting a look that clearly displays my nostalgia for trials gone by. "But so worth it. Driving is amazing."

The camper obliges with a laugh, and continues on about how her older brother took it and is going to be driving soon, while I am vaulted backward in time to when I was her age, and someone older than me had given me the same unwarranted, and wholly unhelpful advice.

It becomes glaringly obvious that the fact that I had suffered through and triumphed from Driver's Ed means as little to this camper as the older teen who had told me the same thing when I had yet to take it. The fact that I had been warned of the boringness awaiting did nothing to shape the actual experience I had in the Driver's Ed classroom.

And in the same vein, I suppose, from the other side of the 15th year, my having completed this thing that my camper has not, is mostly unrelated to the inevitability that she will complete it and have her own experience from it.

How strange it is, to grow older and watch younger people reach milestones you've already passed.

I graduated high school almost exactly a year ago. That was a thing I did- my thing- that I experienced and completed and received the works for.

A month ago, all the kids in the grade below me graduated. They did my things, experienced it in their own way, completed it, and received whatever works they were to receive. It was not my milestone to hold captive, and yet I felt an ownership toward it all the same.

A camper contributes two abysmal kicks to our game of kickball. He is thirteen and has to share over and over again that his kicks were "trash" and he needs to redeem himself. His need for acknowledgement and for serious recognition reminds me of my own thirteenth year, very loudly reading Pride and Prejudice and The Arabian Nights, and pretentiously condemning the literary quality of The Hunger Games, in hopes for some street cred.

From this side of thirteen, I can recognize it, the fundamental psychology of the young teenager seeking approval in misguided places, the need to defend both his normalcy and his significance as an individual.

And on the younger side of late twenties, I feel almost insulted by my boss telling me backhandedly that "People only develop the ability to understand that their actions have consequences later in life when they pass 25."

What I'm getting at here is perhaps a little deeper than the strides I'm taking to give the love and attention owed to sweet kids at my camp who are too bashful to demand it. Because I was once one of those sweet and quiet kids, and now as I grow older, I become more detached from the young girl who yearned for someone to notice her hidden quirks, and more aligned with the adults who taught her to rely on her own satisfaction with herself.

So I betray the little girl I used to be (who ferociously pinned underground music on her Pinterest account), by teasing my campers that One Direction is a better band than the Beatles (to their very, very entertaining outrage). And I slowly begin to understand the nuanced concept that the mind requires its own experiences and growths to shape itself. I wonder indulgently, if the advice we are able to give from our own experiences end up being drowned as people learn lessons for themselves, do we, as people, even have a shared experience?

Next year, the same camper will tell her younger peer exactly how boring Driver's Ed was, and I will be yet another year removed from the me I was when I graduated, but another step closer to understanding why I was the way I was.

"It's like time doesn't exist," a mom groans, exasperated, as her child lingers at the picnic table in hopes of finishing our group game of B.S. before getting into the car after camp. I lay a queen down on the table, smile up at my campers to see if they'll call my bluff, and very silently agree.