Missing Village (April 26, 2006)

So I was checking out the Crossways website today (www.crosswayscamps.org for all the curious people out there)... I miss camp. I really miss camp. It feels as though something is missing from the innermost part of my soul - at it's camp. I was looking at all the pictures from Village (Imago Dei Village for all the curious people out there). I saw one of a canoe trip and it struck me, as it often does when I look at old pictures from camp, that I'll never be there again, not really. Not like I used to be. It's been almost 2 years since I worked at camp. You'd think I'd be over this by now.

It's a fact of life that things end. I know this. I guess I'm just feeling it today. I guess sometimes, even though we grieve and move on with life, we still feel the ache and the emptiness that was left behind.

I don't think that anything you ever love is ever replaced. When something you love stops being a part of your life there is a void where it used to be. You still love it, but it's not a part of your life in the same way anymore, and there's a spot now in your heart that nothing else will ever fill. It's forever taken.

I will always miss my summers at Village. I will miss those cool, misty mornings spent lifeguarding a polar bear swim. I will miss braving the freezing water as we put the docks in... and I will miss adjusting and readjusting the levels of the docks as the water level rises and falls dramatically every few hours. I will miss Superman ice cream at the canteen (even though I can't eat ice cream anymore...) Strangely enough, I will miss making hobo dinners with my cabin of girls out on the 120, feeling tough and wilderness-savvy as we survive on our own for a night in the woods. I will miss walking to the 120 and telling kids we're passing Kevin Costner's house. I mean, Tom Cruise's house. I mean, Matt Damon's house. Who's house will it be this summer?

I will miss the variety shows. I will miss watching the canoes paddle in with the torches just after sunset on Thursday nights. I will miss giving swimtests. I will miss raking carefully around Art Loos' sand sculptures on Friday mornings, seeing how many days they can last without being trampled over. I will miss watching 8 teenagers try to paddle their way down a river as I relax and enjoy the ride. I will miss sweeping, mopping, and waxing the lodge every Friday afternoon while listening (and dancing) to Michael Jackson. I love knowing that last summer (my first summer NOT at Village) a returning staff member couldn't sweep and mop the lodge until they found a Michael Jackson cd to listen to. The tradition lives on...

It sounds kind of depressing, doesn't it? Saying that there will always be a void in your heart when something you love makes its exit from your life. But it's true. We grieve our loss, we heal, we move on and we come to love other things, things which take up a new part of our heart. And we are happy.

But sometimes that little empty space aches just enough to remind us that we loved...