Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Love Ya, Tomorrow!

Tomorrow I leave for my last summer at camp. This is kind of bittersweet. Jerome says I'll be back; so does the camp director. Well, I may return, but not next year. Next year I want to be married to my husband. I want our first summer married to be one of us doing stuff married people do, LOL, not a summer of me being gone fo rnine weeks and only home every other weekend.

For those of you who are new to my world, I started attending this Girl Scout Camp in Pevely when I was 8 years old. It was kind of one of those things where my parents said, "Wanna try this?" And I shrugged and said, "Sure." Ha ha. Then it kind of snowballed from there. I went every summer from then on, even getting my best friend involved. We were COunselors-in-Training (CITs) together the summers we were 15 and 16, and while she didn't return after that due to an unpleasant experience, I did. I was a lifeguard for three years and then I took over the program that I had loved so dearly -- the CIT program.

I love working with my girls. It's so much fun getting them in July the first year and watching them learn, and then getting them again in June the next year and watching them GROW -- as youong women, as role models, as counselors. They're always a fun bunch and I'm sad that I have to leave my group of CIT 1s that I will start this year. CIT-dom is... sacred. You mock, but that's the way a lot of us loko at it. Those of us who fell in love with camp and counted down to the next summer we got to go from the day we got home (not even kidding) dreamed about being a CIT. THey were the cool older girls who sang at meal times and helped out the counselors every now and then. And the girls you're a CIT with, they're called 'sisters" for a reason. YOu learn so much about the other girls you're in training with; yoou live with them, you love them; you learn what makes them tick. You create memories that could last a lifetime.

And it's not just your CIT Sisters this happens with. I have friends from camp who were never CITs, but they fit in just the same. In the age of Facebook and e-mail, it's so much easier to keep in touch with friends you make at camp, and as a result, you stay closer to them. You see them when they're in town.

People ask me why I'm 22 and still work at camp -- Girl Scout Camp, nonetheless. It's simple, really. This is a place that was almost cheap therapy for me. When my parents divorced when I was ten, it was here that I could let it all go and not worry about putting on a strong front for my brother. It was here that Irealized I needed to just be myself. It was here that I found myself. Camp is not just a place: it's a state of mind; it's a refuge. I go back year after year after year because it's another home to me. It's done so much for me that I almost have to repay it somehow.

I realize that I spent most of this post talking about the people of camp and the emotional environment and didn't touch on the landscape: the rolling hills, the lake, the meadows, the effect that millions of lightning bigs have on a hillside at night. I figure the beauty of these things go unspoken. I wouldn't keep returning to a place that I thought was ugly. It's peaceful. It's awe-inspiring. It helps me connect with God.

Anyway, I leave tomorrow which means I won't be updating for a while, but I will post on my weeekends home and let you know how I'm doing. I may even post some pics. I wanted to post some pictures of little me at camp and of the camp itself, but my scanner isn't working.