Every summer from seventh to tenth grade, I attended a church camp that was a conglomeration of different like-minded churches. It was a great opportunity to learn more about God, hang out with people, and make fun memories and inside jokes. In October 2011, when my family left the church where we had been involved for sixteen years, I insisted that wherever we ended up, it had better be a church that went to Creed. That camp had been the highlight of my summers, and I mistakenly believed that it was the only place I would see my few church buddies again. When my family had some some friends over for dinner during the church search, Mom and Dad mentioned this criteria I had set forth. The woman gave a quizzical look. "...She wants to attend a church that recites the Apostle's Creed?" We laughed and explained. Believe it or not, we ended up at a church plant that recites the Apostle's Creed monthly after communion.
It also went to Creed, so in 2012, I had the delightful privilege of going to camp with my new friends Sophie and Mariah, my sister, and her out-of-town friend Hannah. The five of us went under the umbrella of the parent church, and I was delighted by how nice everyone was. After a drama-filled youth group, it was thrilling to discover that teenagers could actually be nice and friendly, not just talking over everyone or aggressively flirting. Instead of feeling anxiety about being The New Person, I enjoyed it, because everyone was genuinely nice and friendly, even if they weren't the type of person I would have mentally pigeonholed as likely to give a nerd like me the time of day.
I had an amazing week. The weather was perfect, the teaching was wonderful, and every single moment of every day was fun and exciting because I got to spend it with good friends. Sophie, Mariah, and I shared a room, and my sister and Hannah were our suite-mates. We got to do almost everything together, and I was wildly, incandescently happy. Sure, there were unpleasant or inconvenient things that happened, but it's sort of like when you're in love: you just forget the unpleasant aspects, or else think they were charming and funny. I was in love with the joy of friendship and community and not feeling left out anymore, so nothing could faze me.
Several months prior, I had shared my NaNoWriMo novel with Sophie and Mariah. They both loved the Petersons, the fictional homeschool family that project was about, and throughout the week of camp, they wanted to hear more about my characters and story world. I loved telling them anecdotes and story plans, and I was amazed by how truly interested they were. People say "be yourself," but when you feel like no one appreciates you, it's easy to retire to the background and just observe. This week was one of the first where I hung out with peers and felt completely comfortable expressing all of my weirdness, because I knew they appreciated it.
It's hard to believe that it has now been four years since that week. Sophie and Mariah have graduated high school, and Hannah has graduated from college. It boggles my mind to think of how much time has passed, yet simultaneously, it feels like these memories have been part of me since time immemorial, because it was the beginning of my new and different life. I was utterly dismayed in 2011 to leave my first church, because I had grown up there and loved it like a second home. I imagined that going to a new church would maintain all my old problems and introduce new ones, but instead, I found all the happiness and love and possibility that I never imagined I could experience. There have been difficult aspects, of course, but they have also contributed to the person I have become, and I am grateful for every detail of my life story. I reached "a bend in the road," as Anne Shirley would say, but right around the corner were people who would get my Anne of Green Gables references, appreciate my stories, care about me, and provide the kind of companionship and mutual enjoyment I thought I would never have.
Here are some of the pictures I took. Photo credits for the first belong to the girl sitting in front of me in the van on the way to Virginia, and that's a perfect example of how friendly the people in the parent church's youth group were. We had nothing superficially in common, but she offered to take pictures when I was struggling to get a good angle, and took about seven wonderful ones.
We had car trouble! It halted our progress for a couple hours, and I kept marveling over the fact that I could still enjoy myself. I don't know if I would have survived having car trouble on the way to Creed with my former youth group, but here, even the most irritated people were still willing to approach it as an adventure and not make it unpleasant for others. I never imagined I would get happy, warm feelings remembering a trip getting stressfully halted like this, but special people make all the difference.
We were so little. Also, that's my "The World Needs your Novel" NaNoWriMo t-shirt. It was overwhelmingly exciting to learn that Mariah and Sophie needed my novels too.
Exploring around the campus.
WE FOUND A LORAX MURAL. When times get tough and I feel overwhelmed, sometimes I cheer myself up by remembering that we took pictures in front of a chalk Lorax mural during one of the best weeks of my life.
Out of this enormous crowd of campers, I got to nonstop love and spend time with a few wonderful people who cared about me, and that made it one of the best weeks ever.
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