There is no way to prepare for this day Even after years and years of going through the same gut-wrenching goodbyes, it never seems to get any easier. Alumni moms recall it vividly and still can hear and smell departure day with lumps in our throats and pains and nausea in our stomachs. And now our daughters experience it as we did and we can’t protect them from it. Alumni counselors now grasp their campers as their counselors did for them years ago. Each year, even though we know what to expect and try to convince ourselves we can handle it, it still rocks us to our core. Little girls who took a week or two to settle in and some who were homesick through Visiting Day-cling to their counselors like Koala bears and sob begging them not to let go of them. The girls look to their counselors bewildered and lost as if to say “How can you let me hurt like this-you are supposed to take care of me and protect me from this uncomfortable feeling. Can you please make it go away?” For young, first year counselors who swore they would not get attached and for whom this may have been just an opportunity to travel and see the world-even they are bent over in the parking lot struggling to breathe as they try to wrap their young minds around the attachment, responsibility, and connection they suddenly feel for their young campers who hated to clean and didn’t want to turn their lights out at night.
It is often in these final goodbyes that many realize the very power of what they just experienced. Throughout the exhausting days and even some sleepless nights, throughout the steaming sun and the cold Berkshire rain, behind the scenes-magic was happening here right before their very eyes. Until the roar of the buses and the painful goodbyes, many don’t even comprehend what they had just accomplished. They lived. They found themselves. For 7 weeks they put down their phones and turned off the tv and tuned in and not out. They were active, engaged, playful. They made new friendships and strengthened old ones. They grew up and became a child again. Ironically in many ways, camp is more reality than the real world is. For years we have always preached that this is a break from the 10 months of reality. But reality has changed. Now, it is here and only here that girls and their young adult counselors learn the true meaning of responsibility and trust. It is only at camp that they learn the value of honesty and acceptance. At Romaca they learn to appreciate their true selves and accept and embrace others in a way they cannot do in “the real world.” Here we laugh from our bellies, not with emojis. Here we walk around holding hands and arm in arm-not with “ily” text messages. Where else in the world are girls taught the true meaning of compassion, except to do a checklist of community service hours or a research paper? Our girls overcome real struggles here and face real challenges. Whether they are afraid of the lake or afraid of jumping off the wibit, fearful of the rock wall, sleeping in a tent or of getting up on stage to sing, terrified of getting on a long bus ride or falling asleep without their moms, getting up on waterskiis or dancing in a lip sync battle-they do it all here. Why? Because on any given day at any given moment there are friends, camp sisters, and counselors all cheering them on, singing their names and saying these magical words “You can do it. We are here!” This support is what is missing from the real world. It’s real because it is true and we all feel it. That is why it hurts so much when it is taken all away.
So no matter how tired, dirty, or cranky your daughter may be today or for the next week, know that for 7 weeks she lived her life to the max. Know that even through the complaints and homesickness, she grew stronger. Know that she turned her bunk into a spa and a haunted house during rest hour, wrote a song for fun with her friends during Free Play, and learned a new card game before before bed. Know she was creative, active, kind, and fulfilled. She learned to stay, and to see things through. There is real value in all of that. Thank you for sending us your babies this summer and for trusting us to love and care for them as you do. Know it hurts a little for them to “re-enter” the ‘real world’ of tweaking their instagram accounts and their snapchat filters, of updating their profile pics and training for their Fall sport so they don’t get cut from the team. We like our real world here at Romaca much better. We live 10 months for 2 so we can really LIVE when we are at camp each summer.
All our love,
Lauren and Debra