Old Beginnings

This week marks the start of my 16^th summer at camp. I started as a 6-year-old pipsqueak who could barely tie his own shoes. Now, I’m starting my third year running the archery program and being the assistant head of the 11-year-olds.

It’s amazing how much has changed over the course of that time, both within me and with my surroundings, but things always feel the same when I enter the camp grounds. I re-discover the excitement of my six-year-old self every time I watch a first-time camper go through what I went through.

In fact, it’s probably what makes me happiest: to watch the kids learn and get excited over something new. This camp never gets old to me, because as long as there’s someone new there, I can get excited by their excitement.

Excitement is contagious. I tell that to my Junior Counselors while teaching them how to teach. I tell them that the most enthusiastic camper is only as enthusiastic as their least enthusiastic counselor. But as much as I hope the kids get something out of the JCs’ excitement, I hope to get something out of it, too. I’ve been teaching archery since I was a junior counselor, coming up on eight years now, and teaching how to teach for three now, so it’s hard for me to get excited over the same things over and over again. But the joys of a camper hitting the target for the first time, it gets me going. And watching the excitement of a 14-year-old male – a demographic that normally is the hardest to get excited – when he realizes that the six-year-old hit the target because of him, it makes me happy to know that I made that possible.

As excited as all this makes me, though, I look at the rest of my life and I wonder how much more of this I have left in me. How much more can I put my “real” life on pause every summer and go play with toys? (How much longer can I pretend I don’t have a real life? Or how much longer can I go before I decide what my real life actually is?)

But for now, I’m happy coming back every summer to this same place, starting over, with an old beginning. This place is home for me. It’s where I am me. It’s where I can put myself out and really make a difference to the most people. I remember my counselors from 10 years ago, and I wonder: who will remember me in 10 years?

Now –how can I make this my real life? (And if my real life ends up in New York City, can I really afford 2 months of rent without living there?)