glory days

I'm not going camp this year.

to be absolutely honest, I made the choice six months ago as I was applying. I wanted to know a few things before I decided to go, but wanted to make sure that I had the choice in the matter, and didn't end up not applying when I was bored and lonely in july. but I knew back then that if I got the answers I didn't want, I wasn't going to go.

the things I wanted to know:

which position would they give me? would they retire me to the a-team? would they stick me in the office, away from most staff and participant contact? would they finally think I was old enough to be a coordinator again? would they, for the Nth time, give me a position that I'm good at, but doesn't force me to be anything better?

who else was going back? am I going to feel like the old kid again? would I have people I would want to talk to, or would I just sit around explaining things to younger staffers? would I, again, feel like the of-age lush because I went to the yacht club for a night or two during staff training?

how is my name being thrown around up there? am I still seen as the girl who took on GC and lost? the one who used to curry favor with so many, but is now an outsider? the silly kid who used to wear costumes and paddle canoes? or, am I just the heartbreaking and bitchy person-who-should-not-be-named?

my answers: they gave me a position I didn't want, but am extremely good at, and it would have been my sixth time doing it. none of my female friends are returning, and I would have, once again, been the girl who hangs out with boys and absorbs the glares of the other girls. and my name will apparently get you a death stare or two if you say it in front of the wrong person. I would have been the old girl, sitting around quietly bitching about things that I don't really care about anymore, but trying to stay out of the way of a few choice characters. the fact is that it would have been quite uncomfortable, and unlike any camp experience that I want to have.

all this said, who really wants to go back to such an environment?

partly... I do... if only because I'm going to miss the people around whom you can still say my name, I'm going to miss those boys with whom I laugh because they're way more fun than the girls, I'm going to miss hanging out with a bunch of ridiculous adolescents who will make me feel young again. I'm also going to miss laying in the sand and playing pranks and staying up way too late and dressing in silly outfits and bitching about the lake-effect weather and raiding the fridge... and all of those classically trite but oh-so-fun things that make summer camp, summer camp.

but, my line of thought since january is that I've had my times. those things have happened. they were the highlight of my last decade, and I think that, much like the misadventures of sorority life and the flub-ups of phoenix friendships, things just naturally need to come to an end. or rather, they cycle:

my favorite summer will always be 2004. sure, I was the one who was heartbroken, but I was also a triplet, and I could do anything I wanted. I drove kids around in 15-passenger vans, I owned "gear," I had glorious days off shopping in thrift stores and laying on the beach. my favorite conference still existed and we ruled it with humor, late night conversations, and ultimate frisbee. summers after that were just my attempt at emulating how I felt in those three short months (which worked about half the time). these feelings directly correllate to my favorite semester in grad school - fall of 2004, spent sitting on the bridalwreath house driveway, teaching chris and caryn to shotgun beers and watching nick hurt himself on his bike - and my favorite semester in college - fall of 2001, when I was super-skinny, had a ridiculous-looking fake ID, and squirmed my way into every dark bar my sisters would frequent. all of these are the height of the carefree attitudes (and perhaps, careless attitudes) in my cycle of living, my glory days.

I think that as I get older, maybe these "heights" will be more frequent, but less high... so that eventually, I'm just having a series of small highlights for the rest of my life, instead of months of an episode of interpersonal mania.

so I've made my choice: spend a whole summer in st louis - spend a whole summer seeking out small bits and pieces of the fun, the silly, the dramatic, the stressful - instead of fitting it all into two heart-wrenching weeks away from my life here. and I'm fully content with that.