stephenwinbaum
Communications Coordinator
/ Moderator
May 9, 2006, 12:30 PM
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Upper Bunk Homesick Blues
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“In a way, homesickness is a good sign. It means your child loves her home and family.”
That insightful quote by Dr. Christopher Thurber, a Camp Scholar with MySummerCamps.com, mirrors feelings I experienced one summer.
I was a 13-year-old boy – at camp again for a long-awaited summer. The first day, I chose an upper bunk, hoping to be elevated into a place of greater fun. Many of my cabin mates were friends from past years – everything seemed to be in place.
But when the lights went out, something unusual happened. I felt restless and I couldn’t sleep. My mind skipped ahead to the upcoming school year and I started to fear that I would fail.
I knew my anxieties were ridiculous – I was an A student – but I couldn’t shake it. I kept rolling it over and over in my mind.
I had just graduated from elementary school – and in September I would be going into my first year of high school. It still didn’t make sense; why would I fail? I knew how to get good marks.
Knowing how to get good marks settled me down.
I twisted that certainty into a faith that my parents loved me. I knew that they would care for me whether I passed or failed. I would simply apply my schoolboy know-how to high school and nothing would change.
I felt better. I had talked myself out of it. I felt sleepy but wondered why these troubling thoughts had surfaced.
As an adult, I see that I had suffered from a mild bout of homesickness. Though normally confident, a sudden departure from my parents, and a future uncertainty about my academic career, left me in a mini-crisis on my first night of camp.
Light out! I got scared!
Those feelings left me – until I became an adult.
Here are a some useful resources about homesickness.
The Great News About Homesickness
The Summer Camp Handbook
Stephen Winbaum is the Communications Coordinator of MySummerCamps.com
(This post was edited by stephenwinbaum on Jul 4, 2006, 2:30 PM)
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