Camp blues

So last Thursday I worked at the recruitment fair in Manchester for Camp America and was left with a bad case of camp blues. Camp is easily one the best things I’ve ever done in my life. I imagine its quite like having kids or a near death experience, if you haven’t done it then you could never ever fully understand how much it changes you. 

Manchester Recruitment Fair, 2014 

 

I still remember the first time I seen my camp. Camp Quinipet. I had literally no idea what I was doing. Like I’ve said before many many times I AM NOT BRAVE. I am a chicken and I was so nervous. Nervous to be away from home and with all of these new people. Nervous that I wouldn’t make friends, wouldn’t fit in. But really, people are people everywhere in the world. And before I knew it, I was in love with camp. 

The next months passed in a second. I was so engaged in camp life that I forgot anything had every existed outside of it, a little phenomenon know as the Quinibubble. In my bubble I began to forget I had a life waiting for me on the other side of the world and people who still missed me, still said a prayer for me every night. My days were spent inventing games and swimming and singing to kids who loved me far more than I deserved. My nights were spent brushing hairs and telling stories that I didn’t know I still remembered. My life there was beautiful. And I wasn’t fully prepared for that. Nor was I prepared for the fact that one day it would be over. 

Camp Quinipet, 2012 

For a year I went to university, I done a placement, I got to remember those great friends I’d left at home but somewhere in the back of my mind, I was always still at camp. Before I knew it I was back and it felt like I’d never left. There were new staff and kids and old friends but the feeling was just the same. One of my old kids had got a dog for Christmas and named it after me. I realized that as much as this place and those kids had changed me, I had changed them. 

And I wasn’t prepared for that either. I wasn’t prepared for the fact that it would hurt to be away from them. Hurt to know I’d never see them grow up, that most of them wouldn’t even remember my name. I wasn’t prepared to leave behind friends that I’d grown so close to, wasn’t prepared to fall in love with a boy who’d always be an ocean apart. 

This summer I’ll be on placement, I’ll be graduating as a Social Worker, something I’ve dreamt about for a long time. And I try and remember that when my heart is calling me somewhere else. I hope some time I do go back to Camp again. And I hope that its still the same as it was when I was 18 years old. Most of all though I hope those people know a part of me will always be thinking about nights sitting around a campfire, singing some cheesy camp song. 

Being mediocre

and they’re still out there among us, in the shadows, in the light, we pass them on the street without a glance, never suspecting, never knowing. Do they even know yet? That they are bound together by a common purpose? A glaring reality, to be extraordinary – Mohinder Suresh (Heroes) 

 

 

Rifling through some old things the other day I found a card from my High school teacher. On the bottom she’d written “You will do amazing things”. I pondered on this for quite some time. I will do amazing things. Will I though? Three years later and I don’t feel like I’m doing very many amazing things at all. In fact three packets of Walkers in and I’m feeling pretty unamazing. I’m feeling very ordinary. 

Sometimes I day dream about what it would be like to be someone important. Wonder whether people like Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela knew they were important. Did their teachers tell them they would do amazing things or did they just blend in with crowd, go unnoticed. Only to one day do something extraordinary. Did they always feel important or was it just thrust upon them one day? And what if I’m supposed to be special too? And what if I’m not…

What if I’m supposed to live a complete mediocre life. I can’t imagine doing a 9-5, having kids, getting married, being stressed and dying and yet thats exactly the path I’ve put myself on. Those are the lives we choose for ourselves but so many of us are unsatisfied with them. 

I want to live in India and work with some of the poorest people in the world, I want to be on the front line in Syria and Pakistan and fight for justice and freedom. I want to change the world and not in small steps. Not one day at a time. I don’t wanna be someone extraordinary, I don’t wanna be remembered. I want to do extraordinary things. I want to make sure that when my time comes, I won’t be gasping for air. 

Maybe I’m not different. Or special. Maybe that teacher wrote that same message on everyone’s cards. But maybe all it takes is one stupid kid to believe it, one kid to believe that message was for them, to make it a reality.. 

 

 

 

 

January 1st

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.” Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild)

All Most of what I write here is just nonsensical thoughts so please read everything with a pinch of salt. I tend to find that life comes in phases. There are times when nothing in your life seems to change for years and then in six months everything changes. Periods of stillness and periods of change. 2014 is what I like to think of as a transition year. A year when you know everything will change. Kind of like when you first started secondary school, when you became a teenager, when you left school, the first time you fell in love, if you’ve had a baby etc. Times when you know before it happens that it will undoubtedly change everything.

I have lived and studied in Liverpool for almost three years and in six months will graduate with a degree in Social Work. Up until this point my life, to a certain degree, has been mapped out. I was in school and I knew I wanted to go to University and I knew what I wanted to do. Everything I have done in my life has been working towards a goal and in six months I will have finally achieved it. And what then?

Do I get a job? Become a Social Worker? Or should I go travelling,enjoy my youth, see the world. Do I stay here, do I move home, maybe I should live in America, reconnect with that part of myself I left there so many summers ago.Or maybe life has plans for me, maybe it knows where I’m going.. and that’s okay too. Today is January the first. “The first day of the rest of your life” according to Facebook. But for me this year really is the start of the rest of my life. In one year from now I have no idea where I will live or what I’ll be doing. And that really is scary. But that’s also what I love about life. The mystery of life is what keeps us engaged, keeps us on our toes.

I try and remind myself that every day. Try remind myself during these transition years that change is good, inevitable. That every year people will come and go. Some people will be there with you every new year counting it in, and sometimes people you thought would always be there, aren’t. That loss and suffering are just as important as summers spent in America and falling asleep by the ocean. That some day, during times of familiarity and responsibilities when my days are spent working and providing for a family, I will yearn for the times when my future was so unclear. So exciting. Try to remind myself that if things don’t turn out the way I wanted them, there is always a second chance. That there is always a chance to change.

Today is the first day of the first of my life, and so is tomorrow..