Camp: The Best/Weirdest Summer Of My Life

I worked at a camp in Massachusetts for almost three months last summer. I only went because one of my best friends, Destiny, asked me to go with her not long after leaving my first out of college job and entering a new job that I quickly realized wasn't for me. Going to camp seemed like the best thing to do at the time because the new job I had for almost two months wasn't worth anyone's time. It was a "marketing job" where you sell a product in a Sam's Club or Wal-Mart and it was commission based so you know it's not worth it. Not unless you were into and aspired to do that kind of thing that is.

Anyway, I decided to go the camp. Filled out the piles of paperwork and listened to my bestie warn me that I would love it and hate it at the same time. I could tell as she kept telling me the cool parts and the suck-y parts that she knew that it was something I had to experience to be able to understand. Once the summer was over, I completely knew what she meant. It was epic but mainly because of the other counselors I met from other countries and states that I would've never met anyway else. However, it was also odd and not fun over half the time because of how the camp operated. 

I want to at least write one post a week about my time at the camp. Highlighting certain events and moments because others need to realize that I literally spent my 2017 summer making less than $2,000 and having 5 off days. Not to mention that we worked from about 8 AM to 10 PM every day and weren't allowed to tell the kids no so they literally got to do whatever they wanted and we were just there for aesthetic purposes.

"Welcome to Camp! Here are the cabins, the mess hall, the office, the kitchen dorms, the staff lounge, those? Oh, those are counselors (don't touch them), and the lakes! Beautiful right? Keep walking."

I feel as if everyone has wanted to work and/or go to a summer camp at some point in their life and I think they should. It's very interesting and it had it's fun parts. When camp was fun, it was really fun, but when it was bad, it was God awful. Just weird AF too for a lot of reasons. I will highlight some of the weird stuff I witnessed. Campers doing a strange ritual where they pee in a circle around their counselor, being 1 of 5 black people there and having some people be not use to you (example: "Can I touch your hair?" They ask as they are already touching it), Hearing about counselors cheating/hooking up with other counselors around camp, and seeing your Monday dinner in Wednesday's breakfast. 

Regardless of the craziness, you don't understand how much it changed my life. Not only do I want to create a movie or TV show about my experience there because some stuff was just too unrealistic, but I met some of the most amazing and beautiful people while I was there. People from different countries and states, whom, I now want to travel the world to be able to see because being stuck in the South is not one of my current dreams. At least I'm not in Alabama anymore. (post about how I feel about Alabama in general will come later.)

I was able to accept so much about myself while at camp. Being raw and unfiltered in the way of not being able to wear make up to hide my acne and scarring, having my awkward and weird personality shine, not needing to really worry about my weight, and my introverted self was able to be more open than ever with so many people so quickly. I loved it. I felt normal with my new friends who didn't care about any of my insecurities. We bonded over potatoes, brats, the vast LGBTQ+ staff, and so much more. But it was still odd.

I balled like a baby the morning I left because I had been immersed in a "camp bubble" for almost three months. Hardly any phone or laptop use. Not much talking to anyone that wasn't sleeping within 500 feet of you either. Wendy's, Wal-mart, and Applebees were our night out on the town basically. Applebees was more of a saving grace on nights you weren't working and could no longer stomach another odd serving of potatoes or possible french toast batter from breakfast being used to coat the fish at dinner.

 The bonds you made seemed so permanent and your life there seemed like the new norm despite how weird so much of it was. Thus, leaving was so hard but also so refreshing because all of us were so low-key ready to leave by week four after realizing the order of a place like camp. Let me clarify that I cried because I was going to miss my fellow counselors, that's it. I was dry eyed as the actual campers cried on their way to their buses and cars on their last day. There were some really cool campers there but they weren't the ones who impacted my life and time there. I learned how not to raise kids while I was there if anything. 

Oh yea, about fifteen or so people got fired throughout the whole summer. Some odd reasons behind those too man. This will be fun reminiscing. I should've kept up my camp journal but that failed after day 4 because it was camp. It took more out of me than expected.

Have you ever attended or worked at a camp? Was your experience more realistic to what we see on TV? And when I say TV I mean Parent Trap. Did I mention camp was like $13,000 per camper to be there for the 7 or so weeks?