It’s cliché, yes, but when we say we live ten for two, there’s a deeper meaning to the love and cherished memories gathered and collected throughout our summers spent at sleep away camp. Whether you went to a four-week camp or an eight-week camp, we’ve all experienced the same emotional roller coaster and all the joys that our home away from home has given us. Camp is where we learned life skills that we still carry with us today. It’s different than school, where we grow intellectually, but not so much emotionally. Without camp, I would be an awkward timid girl not willing to step outside her comfort zone and walk to the beat of her own drum.
I’m biased though. I was sent off to an all girls sleep away camp in Maine, six hours away from home, and the only way to communicate with my parents was by writing letters. But going to a camp in Maine truly encompassed the idea of being in a bubble. The nearest Walmart was almost 30 minutes away and you didn’t hear nor care about what was going on in the outside world. All that mattered was that you were constantly surrounded by your best friends -- or as we called it, “green-flames” -- which wasn’t just best friends but friends who knew you better than you knew yourself.
Camp furthered my ability to learn to live and cope with others -- without the frictions or safety valve of siblings or helicopter parents. That meant living with ten, or by my last summer of camp, 28 girls in one bunk. Camp friends would pick each other up when they were down, whether it was facing their fears to make that leap of faith to go down the zip-line at ropes or cheering each other on when someone finally got up on the one-ski long rope. Camp friends accepted each other’s weird sides and quirks because camp was a place where you could really let your freak flag fly and wear a tutu to athletics and not be ridiculed.
My last camp summer was 2010 and I can’t help but continue to envy those who still enter the wondrous, carefree bubble of camp. There really wasn’t a care in the world. The biggest concern that anyone would have would be when color war was going to break out or who they were going to sit with on the bus to Fun Town Splash Town U.S.A., which would, of course, be decided a week prior to the trip. Fights would consist of someone taking the last Chipwich at snack time and not the catty dramas we all experience in college. Camp provided an environment where we had to get along, yet it all came naturally.
These organic friendships have carried through to present day. If I haven’t spoken to a camp friend in a month or even a year, we always pick up right where we left off. We owe it all to camp, so thanks.