My grandparents used to own a summer sleepaway camp in Upstate New York, so it was no surprise when my parents decided to send my older sister and me to camp as well.
In 2007, my sister started her sleepaway camp experience and I could not wait to join her. Although it seemed like forever, two short years later at the ripe old age of seven, I started my very first summer at the same camp she was attending. It is now fifteen years later and I still eagerly wait for June to come around each year to spend the summer at my second home.
Putting my camp experience into words has always been difficult, but I try to do my best each time someone asks why I love it as much as I do. To put it simply, I would not be the person I am today if I had not gone to camp.
Starting with the fact that I would never have been able to go to college so far away from my parents without the experience of camp. Going two months with the main contact with your parents being writing letters (which I was not very consistent with) prepares you for college in a way that nothing else can. While I still call my parents basically every day, their choice to send me to camp made the transition from living at home to living seven hours away a whole lot easier.
Another life lesson that I learned was to live in the moment as much as you can, as we were always told “don’t count the days, make the days count.” Seven weeks is not that long, but we created so many moments for ourselves because we learned very quickly how much each day mattered when we were there. Whether we were making up songs, dancing in the rain or just sitting together talking about anything and everything at any hour of the day, every moment became a special memory because we had no time for it not to become one. We wanted to pack a lifetime of memories into each summer because these were the stories that we would be telling for a very long time and reminiscing on when we were hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
Those memories wouldn’t have been possible without the most amazing people that I have met along the way. That leads me to the most important thing that camp has taught me so far: what true friendship looks like.
You don’t realize how quickly seven weeks can go by until it’s time to start saying goodbye to the people whose sides you haven’t left for longer than two minutes at a time. I could not imagine my life without my camp friends. The excitement and joy that they bring to my life on a regular basis are unmatched by anyone.
Although we all live far away from each other whether it’s a few hours, a few states or even a few countries, I know that the friends I have made throughout my time at camp are ones that will be there for me no matter what. They give some of the best advice and the most needed reality checks. They are the people I can run to with the simplest of news and they will celebrate with me like there is nothing more important, the people that can tell me exactly what I need to hear without me even needing to say a word and the people who make camp such an amazing place. Whether they have realized it or not, the friends I have made at camp have become a second family to me and I am so thankful to camp for bringing them into my life.
The camp has been my home away from home since the minute I got dropped off my first summer. I don’t think I will ever truly have the words to describe the impact it has made on my life, and I think that is the best way of saying how much I love that place. The camp bubble is a paradise that is my hardest goodbye each August and I am so thankful that I get to return summer after summer. There is no experience like it, and that’s why sleepaway camp will forever hold a special place in my heart.
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