There's a ton of stuff to write about from this last (amazing, top 2!) summer but I'll to write about that later....when it's not almost 10 pm. I'll just leave you with the fact that it was my best summer since my first, life changing, summer.
The last full day of summer camp started early as Rae and Gail had decided to do the Roger Murphy challenge. For those of you who aren't familiar with camp, the Roger Murphy challenge is an early morning 1 mile swim in the lake from the boat house to the TLC dock....and back. For those who don't know me extremely well, I haven't been in the lake in, well, years. I've dealt with a fear of dark water and I also don't like snakes and I happen to know that there are snakes in that lake so double whammy! Hell no I'm not going in. And I wasn't going to join them. That is until the Tuesday night before when Cayuga cabin, with whom I'd been hanging out with on a cookout, asked me to join them on the blob. Um, I haven't been on the blob in about 5 years and it's not the blob I dislike, it's the swim to and from and anytime one falls off the blob and has to swim around to get back on. The last time I was on the water slide I about had a slight panic attack on the swim back just thinking about how I couldn't see what I was swimming in. But I didn't want to disappoint them and I also wanted to prove that fear can't hold you back and sometimes you have to push through it. So I decided to go with them. I'll tell you that there was some trepidation before I jumped in and I quickly swum to the blob. After I was on it though, I started having fun jumping, sliding, blobbing others and being blobbed. After I got out, I realized it was fun. I still didn't really like it, but I managed the fear of what laid under the surface of the water that could not be seen. Still, I had not even thought about the challenge of swimming to the dock and back. But something in me a few days later stirred that maybe I should try it. Could I manage fear enough to get in the water and not just swim to the blob but to the other side of the lake...and back. I wavered back and forth on the issue until I told Cayuga that if they all did it, I would. And of course they wanted to see me in the water so that's why I found myself at 6:30 on a Friday morning (I could have been sleeping for at least another hour) getting ready for the swim. Once I rounded the blob and realized how far away the dock looked, I realized that this was a bad idea....and a long swim. I had to hurry as best I could because we were late but I also felt like I was going nowhere with each stroke. Managing fear and trying to swim with the most ridiculous of life jackets trying to kill me with the straps wrapping around me took it out of me a little quicker than I had planned on. When I reached the bridge and remembered that I had once (or twice or three times) looked down from that very bridge to see a snake slither by, I just prayed to God I wouldn't see one today because I would have had no where to go in my extreme panic to exit the water. I just kept swimming and swimming and swimming and about 24 minutes later I was done. I was done and I was DONE! Tired and already sore but done. And the purple band? I earned that and I'll wear that for a while. It's something I've never done before and may never do again but at least I did it once and I proved I could do something I didn't want to do. So there you go Roger Murphy! Challenge accepted and completed. What a way to end summer 2014!
At the beginning of the summer, I challenged my counselors and myself to not merely survive this summer but to thrive. To think of ways to grow, to learn, to find ways to be better. I think that at the most tired of times throughout the summer, that song, that phrase, "Thrive", kept me going at a high standard. In summer's past, it's been all about surviving the summer but I wanted to grow this summer. Yeah, sometimes I fell. Sometimes we all fell short. But as a group, these counselors and staff held one another to a high standard as well. We supported each other like I had never seen. I came out of this summer a different person than I went in. The same sort of feeling I had after my first summer which completely altered my life forever. The change wasn't as drastic but I was changed, excited to do my best, to love the kids the best way possible, to love my counselors and enable them to thrive too. Looking back at the summer which I kinda didn't want to end, I know that we achieved our goal. We thrived. We had challenging kids that no one loved and we loved them. We had weird days/situations that challenged our patience and we kept our cool. We had bad days that shook us to our core (at least to my core!) and required us to keep putting one step in front of the other until we got past the pain. We had people try to disrupt the harmony of our group and we trusted each other and didn't believe the lies. We, as a group, were a high functioning, loving, thriving, growing, unified family. Thanks for everything. Love you all! Casting Crown's Thrive Video
