If you couldn’t guess from my entire personality, I went to summer camp for my whole life. I was also a pretty excellent camp counselor if I do say so myself.
And at least once a year, I have a dream where I beg the camp directors to give me my old job back. “You’re overqualified,” they say in Camp Dreamland. “I’m perfect for it,” I argue back. I always sleep in the cabin, sometimes with my husband and kids, too. And then wake up in the morning!
When we moved out to the beach for the first year of the pandemic, the environment I created was much like summer camp. At first, there were pods where we would eat and socialize with a small group. And then, when it was safe to open up a little more, there were school friends, friends from the gym, friends who worked at the market down the street. An outdoor, Friday night bonfire anchored all of our socialization, even in the dead of winter.
While we were happy and relieved to come back to Brooklyn and our many communities here, the last day of living there felt very much like the last day of camp.
(Oh, do you not know about the last day of summer camp?! It entails sobs and hugs and feeling like your whole world has burst … until you get home and hang out with the same people you were at camp with over and over again until school starts.)
While we don’t fully move to the beach, this past summer,* we spent two big chunks of time there. Together with the friends who became family a few years before, we had swim dates, boat rides, sleepovers, and plenty of bonfires. On the last night, I watched 10-year-old Sammy walk his friend from down the block home and felt that familiar last-day-of-camp lump in my throat. We’re only sad it’s the end of an era when the era’s that good, I told him.
Luckily it’s a place we get to return to again and again.
Speaking of camp and friends and community, a former client reached out to me craving mini-group coaching. It will run from late September to late December (12 sessions!), and it will be by semi-invite only! If you're looking for a boost for the last couple of months of the year, send me a message and I’ll send you the info in the next couple of days.
Until then, I’ll be counting the days to our fall “summer camp” reunion!
xx, Leah
