The Wright Place: 31 years later...I'm back

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

31 years later...I'm back

Once upon a time I went to summer youth camp when I was in fourth grade. Once being the operative word. I was probably 10 years old. My youth group went to camp on a Sunday afternoon and I came home on Tuesday without the rest of my group. My parents had to come and get me because I simply was not a happy camper. I never went back to camp and I didn't, until college, travel far from without one parent or another in tow.

I'm all grown up now but I still don't like leaving home.

Today through some twists and turns and circumstances well beyond anyone's control (not the least of which MINE), I find myself once more at church youth camp. When I dropped my little girls with my parents yesterday, my Dad, driver of my rescue car 31 years ago, looked at me with a wink and said, "Try and stay past Tuesday...break your old record!"

I'm at camp with my big kids and a little more than a dozen of their friends and I've survived day one in pretty good condition. Across the hall from my room is a young girl whose mom told me as her daughter climbed into the church van, "She even got homesick on vacation in Disney World." I told her I'd had the same experience many times even while among my entire family at the beach when I was a young girl and then again last year.

I'm keeping an eye on my young friend, watching for those old familiar signs that creep into the joy of adventure and try to talk you out of your fun. She seems to be doing so well tonight and I am too. I told her she was wise to kick that old homesick monster out of her life and that I wish I had done the same thing when I was her age.

Now, though, I am my age and here I am...again. Stay tuned...