Red Light, Green Light

Let's be honest. For the past six years, I've built my life around camp. I've missed countless friends' weddings, worked through six of my birthdays without a second thought, skipped a week of grad school classes, missed ALL of my cousins' high school graduations, passed on tons of celebrations, and didn't catch a single second of the Beijing Olympics. All because I work at camp.

So when I add up all the things I've missed, I begin to wonder why. And the answer is simple. Because what I've gained has more than made up for it all. Camp has taught me about what really matters in life. That kids are kids and people are people and that we all just need to be loved. I don't mean the happily ever after I love you I love you more kind of love. Just to know that there is someone else in this world who cares enough to take care of you, who is willing to make sacrifices to ensure your safety.

Even though I had to get a "real job" I've been weekending back at camp, unwilling to let it go completely. Right now I'm at the last weekend of the season and it's starting to REALLY sink in that I won't be spending the summer back on the mountain. That means that I won't be working on my birthday this summer, and I WILL be traveling to one of my best friend's weddings in August. But it doesn't mean I'll be forgetting anything that I've learned over the years.

A couple weekends ago, we were playing a game of Red Light, Green Light. And as I was watching one of the kids be the stoplight, I noticed something amazing. All the others, whether they completely understood the rules of the game or not, were going on green and stopping on red. It wasn't that they had some innate sense about the difference between red and green lights. But what struck me was the way they all worked together to play the game.

The fifteen-year old girl with high-functioning Autism was pushing the 30-year old woman in a wheelchair across the grass; one of the nine-year old triplets with Autism was keeping one of the wanderers on track; and a girl who is usually in her own world completely repeated the commands of red light green light to herself, stopping and starting a couple steps behind the rest. And I thought to myself that everything you need to learn in life you can learn from a game of Red Light, Green Light. Stay when you need to stay, go when you need to go, and be sure to help the others along the way.