But in the long run, I doubt the people at my camp would remember much about my troubled childhood. Maybe, somewhere in some file, it says that I was clingy and needy and troubled. But I’m sure there were lots of kids who wanted more attention from their counselors. Besides, it all happened so long ago… such ancient history.
But when I got into my late teens, I became a staff member. Whenever I wasn’t in school, I was working there. Those are some of the memories I cherish and regret the most. There are a lot of quirky kids in the world, but I was a needy, clingy, troubled young woman. In retrospect, I wonder if it was glaringly obvious.
I’d always planned to do the counselor-training program when I turned fifteen. It seemed like the perfect summer job; to become the strong role model I’d always looked up to. There was only one problem. I’d spent the spring in a locked psychiatric unit. My parents warned me that the camp might not want to employ me with such a history. When we called to ask the camp director said it was no problem. They trusted me – heck, they’d known me forever. My parents were slightly amazed but let me go.
It was wonderful. For the first time in months I was taking care of myself. At the end of the summer, I went camping alone, up in the hemlock forest for a couple of nights. It was part of the program, a test of our survival skills. At night, the sky was barely blue and everything else was black. I couldn’t see my sleeping bag just a foot away. The ground below felt hollow, layered with soft, brown needles. It was still warm and the air smelled clean, like the trees. I listened to the crickets and the rest of the world down by the lake. I felt strangely confident. I hadn’t just survived the hospitalization - I wanted to live.
For the next four summers, I was a full counselor. I loved being in charge. When the kids paid attention I taught them rappelling, respect, and the breaststroke. I became captain of the lifeguard team; my shoulders tanned while I watched the kids and twirled my whistle around my fingers. My hair hung almost to my waist and around my neck I wore a large green stone on a leather cord. I cuddled my girls through thunderstorms and gave them my hot dog when theirs fell in the campfire. At night, my campers climbed into their small bunks and I sang Joni Mitchell songs by flashlight. On nights off, the staff all went bowling or drank beer at bonfires in the woods. I had a station wagon so I was frequently the driver. The only time the police hassled us I was sitting in the back seat and they didn’t ask my age.
I wanted to look like I didn’t need anyone to take care of me. But inside, I desperately wanted a boyfriend – anyone – to love me. Every summer I’d try to find the right guy and wind up with a loser or someone who’d dump me in the fall. There was Chris, the drunk from Maine who never let me go all the way with him. There was Eric, the Trekkie who played the trombone in the marching band. There was the art history professor from London who I feel deeply in love with. On our weekends off we’d stay in nice hotels or go to Greenwich Village on the train. After we’d fool around, he’d order tea from room service and we’d drink it in our underwear. I fantasized about moving to London, about marrying him and having a home together. When I went back to college that fall, I went straight to the study abroad office and got brochures for all the London Universities. He met the woman he would later marry and dumped me via airmail.
My last summer at camp, I started wondering if I was barking up the wrong tree. Our director had just come out of the closet and I’d always wanted her to like me. One night while we were sitting around the campfire I told her that I thought I might be interested in girls. Then a week later, I hooked up with Joe, the counselor from Namibia. He was fun to work with - a charmer with an Afrikaans accent. I wasn’t attracted to his long thinning hair but he told great stories about Africa; Zulus, Victoria Falls, elephants, wildlife preserves. We stayed together through the fall but when I cut off his comb-over and I still wasn’t attracted to him, I ended it.
By that point, I was twenty and embarrassed. There had been too many boyfriends, too many cries for help. After all the different personas and personalities I’d tried, how could I look anyone in the face? Surely, I had lost everyone’s respect. I never went back to camp. And I never forgave myself for ruining my home away from home.
Until…
well, until I wrote all this and saw just how innocent it really was. I was very young and I was struggling. I did the best I could. I’m sure the people at camp didn’t notice a lot of what I was going through. And what they did notice, I’m sure they didn’t mind because… well, I think they cared about me.
