The camp struggle has certainly set in these last two weeks. It doesn't help that I haven't gotten a break in between. Kim wanted to make sure that we got our full paychecks even though the second discovery wasn't a whole week long, so I got a long weekend for the 4th, but worked Discovery 2, worked the weekend, and worked straight into the next camp, and it is stretching me thin.
First the 4th weekend. I don't remember much. I know Olivia and I went with my parents to Kathy and DaJuan's overnight for the 3rd into the 4th. It was fun, but they kept talking about the future, which stressed me out. They do that a lot. It seems like whenever we go there, we have to talk about grad school and marriage and crap like that, and it stresses me out that literally one year from now I'm supposed to be in the real world figuring my life out. This wasn't exactly where I expected to be at this point. We went into Plymouth too, and that's a cute little town. Oh my goodness did we eat good too. After we got back, Liv left to go to her Grandpa's, and 2 hours later texted me and told me to come, so I did. So that was how I spent my 4th evening. We had another great meal, and we just sat on their back porch, which was peaceful and quiet and not exploding. Then when I was driving back, I took the long way, and got to see a lot of fireworks from the highway, which was awesome. I think fireworks look cool, but I hate the noise, but seeing them from the highway meant I could see them very closely, but couldn't hear anything but my own music. It was awesome, and there wasn't anyone else around to give me a hard time or for me to ruin their 4th. So it was good. I don't often (ever) have good 4ths.
The next day was Discovery. Discovery was fun cuz it's the little bitties, but it was still stressful. The first discovery, we had the entire staff, so we had plenty of people, but for this discovery, we had probably about 1/3 of the staff, so support staff especially had more work on their hands. I got pretty tired out. And it was also sad because one of the little girls was giving her counselor a hard time. She had tantrums often and was hard to get out of those tantrums modes. So they ended up sending her home. She was only 6 anyways. But it turns out that her and her older sister (who was also at camp) have been sexually abused by their dad since pretty much birth, and their dad was only taken out of the home one month ago. Heartbreaking. And I also came to the realization that as a social worker, that's gonna be my life. Stories like that. And it won't just be working with the victims. It'll be working with perpetrators too, and that's just hard. So that was pretty heavy. Friday, I lifeguarded all day. There was tons of people there, so we didn't have to do too much, but I was still tired out. Friday night, Liv and I stayed with Shayna and then Rae, Katie, and David decided to come scare us. Punks. Saturday morning, I had to do low elements with a group from Kettering. I've never ran those before, and I actually enjoyed it. I had a good group though. And then I spent the rest of the afternoon lifeguarding. I feel like that day was more stressful, but I don't remember why. Then Rae, Mariss, Liv and I went to Goodwill. Saturday night was kind of off for me too.
By Sunday, I was exhausted already, and honestly, when I woke up knowing that we had to start Junior Specialty, and I just didn't want to be here anymore. I wanted to be at home. I wanted to be done. But instead, our staff was being split in half again, and a lot of the responsibility was left on me. Liv and Marissa both went with on Senior Teen Trip, so Stacey was supposed to do games and Tiffany was supposed to be waterfront director, and I was supposed to just kind of help them out. Well then, last minute, TONS of adjustments were made, and Stacey ended up as a counselor, taking out her ability to do games, and so that fell on me. So I was worship director without my singing partner/acoustic guitarist, or keyboardist, or the help I usually have to set up, I was in charge of games (coming up with and setting up and running pretty much), and still assistant waterfront director. And I was already burned out. Sunday was long and hard. Monday was LONG and HARD. (She never said that). And Tuesday morning, it was already starting out with too much for me to try and do and figure out, and so I went to my car, turned on an Underoath song, and had a temper tantrum/hysterical crying fit. I called my mom, and my wonderful mother, waking up to a daughter calling at 7:45 AM sobbing, calmed me down. At that point, Angel realized I needed help. Lauren was supposed to go on trip, but she ended up being sick and coming back for Junior Specialty, so we tag-teamed for games, which made it TONS easier. We had two people to brainstorm, and I was fine with set up and she was fine with directing them, so that worked out much better. Waterfront was still stressful, but that's gotten somewhat better. And I've been figuring worship out better too.
Since Tuesday morning, the days have been long and full, but not hard. I can handle doing lots of work, but having too much responsibility of things that aren't my strengths added on me takes me down quick. When I got sufficient help, things got much better. I have done so much in the last few days that I'm almost impressed with myself. It's almost been like finals week, where I get done, look back, and am like "Yeah. I did all that. I can probably do anything." But I will sleep well this weekend, I can tell you that.
The kids this week have been hilarious. Junior Specialty has such a different feel than Junior Explorer, despite the fact that it's the same age range. They are much more dramatic. We've had like, 5 girls go home because they faked illnesses pretty much. And mylanta, during worship, I have been concerned that the whole place was gonna go down because their motions were so enthusiastic and big. I had a hard time singing over them in a microphone, even though there's only like, 55 of them. I also watched Rachel's cabin for about 45 minutes yesterday because she needed a little extra break, and they were CRAZY!!! But they LOVE me! Whenever they see me, all 11 of them attack me and give me a hug. It's kind of nice being loved :)
Long story short, these last two weeks have required a lot of extra work, because the same amount of work is still expected even though we only have about half the staff. So I've been stretched pretty thin. But things have definitely looked up from the beginning of the week, and I'm finishing this week out feeling good about things.
Next week is Family Camp, which I normally hate, and still will to a certain extent, but this year, instead of getting stuck in Day Camp (which literally may be my least favorite part of camp) I'm with the Teens, which is AWESOME!!! I don't even have to do music in the morning cuz Wellspring will, and I get to be a part of the Teen services. Ben Markham is speaking and he's phenomenal, and I'm just excited for that. But for now, I need to go because chapel is in half an hour and I haven't picked songs yet :)
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