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I am a camp girl.

I spent almost four and a quarter years of my life (over the span of 14 years) working at a summer camp on an island an hour off the Vancouver coast. I did it through high school, through years of university, and through jobs that allowed me the time to go and follow my little camp heart.

I started as a junior counselor at barely 15. I lived with 12 new monkeys every week, and taught windsurfing and snorkeling. From there, I did everything that I could possibly do on staff until I ended up in charge of the place year-round.

That added another 27 months in the office in the city, wrangling budgets and hustling to raise money and dealing with nonprofit crap and answering random parent questions and conducting more than 700 staffing interviews with people aged 15 to 82.

So when it comes to camping, I know my stuff. Mostly.

People ask me all the time why I did it for as long as I did it — especially if they never did camp or HATED IT (and I know a lot of you folks).

I suppose the best answer I can give is twofold:

First, I loved it. I loved being outside. I love kids. I love being active. I love being silly. I love people in general. No other job has ever worn me out in such a jolly way. And as wonky as the 18-hour days were, and as minimal as the pay was, you couldn’t really do much but be thankful when you woke up to a crazy sunrise and 220 kids happy to be alive.

Second? I saw the value in it every single day. The value of getting kids out of the city, the value of giving them an opportunity to learn something new, the value of making fresh friendships and learning to interact with others in a positive way… all of it made sense.

There are a ZILLION worse jobs you could do. I always knew that, no matter how tired or dirty or overwhelmed I got.

That doesn’t mean it was always easy.

It wasn’t easy when I had to file abuse reports for children that had gone through hell at home. I felt like gravity was sucking me into the ground when I had to tell our assigned caseworker that we had a little boy covered in bruises that weren’t caused by falling off his bike, or a little girl that hadn’t stopped crying panicky tears since the boat left the dock — a departure that finally put distance between her and her stepfather. He would later be arrested and convicted of things I still can’t talk about.

I never quite got used to “reporting”, though I did it dozens of times over the years. I can’t IMAGINE what it’s like to be a caseworker or a teacher or anyone who has to deal with it ALL THE TIME. I couldn’t. I admire you. I’m glad you’re there.

It wasn’t easy when I’d have a mom — a totally self-sacrificing woman who’d spent her last dollar on a cab to come to the boat with her two kids so they could get a weekend away from one of the roughest parts of the city — hand me a photo of her ex-boyfriend and ask if I could show the staff so they’d warn her if he found his way to the island.

Which he did.

And he found his way off the island, too, but not without the police taking their tiny speedboat over from the town across the inlet to read him several versions of the riot act.

I knew he’d be waiting for her when she got home.

But going home was what she didn’t end up doing… our caseworker was awesome, did I mention that?

It wasn’t easy when kids would bully one another, or someone would feel left out, or I’d have a teenage counselor who didn’t handle either situation well. I couldn’t stand the idea of a little person lying in their bed at night wishing they were anywhere else but where they were, though I knew it happened.

We did our best, but I couldn’t force kids to do or be things if those things didn’t make them comfortable. I’d rout out anyone who made them feel like that, but I knew the positive nature of the experience would never be universal.

Hell, I walked away from my first week at 10 with a broken toe, a mouthful of canker sores, many traumatic experiences with bugs, and the worst counselor ever. I believe she was fired the following week for hitting one of her campers (!)

After all, when you’re a kid, leaving your family for a week and dealing with a ton of folks you don’t know can be a pretty weird thing. When I hear about the months-long residential camps in the States, I can’t IMAGINE how kids OR counselors deal with it. Or parents, for that matter.

Maybe we’re just pansies here in Canada (though we’ll beat you up if you say so.)

(And I DID stay for the whole summer as soon as they would let me… so there!)

Finally, it wasn’t easy when I broke a few ribs, or broke my nose, or fell on a wasp’s nest, or got pneumonia, or got food poisoning, or got a staph infection from a tiny cut on my ankle that turned into a near-amputation situation. I ended up losing 38 pounds in two weeks (match THAT, Oprah) and lost my stomach lining to four rounds of IV and oral antibiotics.

I learned to be tough. There are a zillion things worse than being injured at camp. Once you got it in perspective, you’d know you were lucky to be where you were again.

All in all, the experience exposed me to the best and worst in people, just like life tends to do anyway. And you can learn lessons anywhere… but I feel pretty blessed I got to learn them in that environment.

(And did I mention that I worked with gorgeous boys and got a fantastic tan and got to spend DAYS in the water? Yes.)

To sum it all up, I’d like to present you now with the 20 most important things I learned at camp in the space of those 14 or so years (not including the FUNDAMENTAL lesson in the title of this post.) Take it with many grains of salt, and maybe a shot of Tabasco.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM BEING A CAMP GIRL

1. The key to being able to deal with your worst phobias (snakes, spiders, bees, rodents, heights, water, etc.) is to have to help ANOTHER person deal with that phobia… especially a small person. I was amazed at what I could handle when I had no choice but to keep my head together.

2. Some people just aren’t morning people. Don’t screw with that. Especially with a megaphone.

3. If you want to make a non-morning person laugh in a gentle, non-invasive way, just lead 220 kids in dancing to Tchaikovsky, ABBA or Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in their pajamas. I swear. Works every time.

4. Gossip — though it may be at the heart of most entertainment reporting and the true purpose of all nail salons — is the fastest community killer known to man. Just open your mouth and watch things fall apart. I quickly realized that the people who knew all the “dirt” usually got their dirt at the expense of both work and relationships and integrity. And sometimes those priorities got them fired.

5. Never put a laid-back person in charge of cleaning a kitchen or checking climbing equipment.

6. Never force a shy kid onto a stage if they don’t want to be on a stage. But if they ask for the mic, give it to them RIGHT AWAY. Those tiny bursts of courage can change the face of someone’s whole life. I have more examples than I can count.

7. Sleeping under the stars is the best way to feel the right kind of small… and the right kind of big.

8. Crushes are better than coffee for getting you out of bed in the morning.

9. If your first response is to yell, see if you can go for a walk first. Unless it involves teenage boys. Then go right ahead.

10. Don’t invent a rule to deal with a single situation. The best way to make a situation keep happening is to create a rule.

11. Better solutions to problems come when you get the right people involved, as opposed to just more people.

12. Actual acts of love mean much more than loving words. But if you can do both? Score.

13. Sticks and fire are the greatest enemies of order and reason known to man. But a s’more is worth the risk every time.

14. You can get in much more trouble talking than you can by listening.

15. There are few things as powerful on this earth than a parent’s love for a child. Think very hard before you get in the way. And if you have to, don’t stop thinking the entire time.

16. Expectations and grace are two things every leader should have in spades.

17. Passion and dedication can often outrank skill when it comes to learning how to do a job right. Unless that job involves heavy machinery.

18. The chance to try something new is one of the best gifts you can give someone, whether it’s a huge challenge or a little task. An even better gift is giving them the chance to try again if it doesn’t work out the first time.

19. Being part of a child’s life is an honor, whether it happens for an hour, a day, a week or a lifetime. Even when you are pretty much ready to honor them upside the head.

20. Whatever you think you know, there is a thousand times more stuff still left to learn.