Summer is about being free and having the time of your life with your friends, right? Road trips? Parties? BBQs? All of this may be true and may have fallen under that topic of interest for most teenagers, but for me, that was never really the case. For me, my summers consisted of eager screams, countless coloring books, a new mentor, and my best friends as my co-workers, a life I never really wanted but would never take back.
When I started off as a volunteer at my old day camp, the last thing I wanted to do was work with little kids. More than anything, I wished to be with the older group because that was where my friends were. I distinctively remember that when my car was driving over a railroad track, I lifted my feet up and made that exact wish. However, you know what really happens when you don’t get what you wish for? A lot of stress and a lot of dedication.
The first year I started working with kids was where I finally felt like I was doing something right. Sure, I want my writing to mean something to somebody someday, but with being a counselor, I got to be known as a someone who means something by so many precious children.
Even though working with 3-5-year-olds was the last place fourteen-year-old wanted to be, I managed to find so much light in a situation. During that year, I realized that being with my friends wasn’t a priority of the camp, but more of a privilege. And even though there were times where I wanted to avoid the campers and be with my friends, I realized that’s not what I was here for.
By fifteen, when I became a counselor, the benefits of the kids and co-workers being my best friends came even more to place. My first year really working in the camp, one of my best friends ended up being in the same group of me and our head counselor went from being a stranger to my mentor. All in all, these two co-workers became my family and ultimately made me a better person.
They made me a responsible person, a sympathetic person, and someone who puts others before herself kind of person. Even though they were the factors to keep me going to work every day with a smile on my face for my campers, I would have never found so much love for kids if it weren’t for them.
Kids are whinny, right? Kids are loud? Well, guess what, they are just kids. This is the time for them to be as impossible, irritating, and loving as ever. So knowing that kids are like this, isn’t it our job to work with them and even laugh along with them through it? More than anything, I loved making 3-to-5-year-olds laugh. I thought it was so amazingly beautiful how they found even the littlest things funny, or even the fact that they got the greatest amount of amusement from just jumping on my back.
I don’t like to say that I had favorites because I didn’t, but I did have kids who did make an impact in my life.Kids who have had such a touching and exciting spirit that I wanted to keep going to work every day. Kids who I still see when I visit this said camp. Kids who have encouraged me to actually to overlook all those stereotypes on working with kids for a living.
“You’ll have such a bitter life if you become a teacher and make no money.” I spent a lot of my life focused on this assumption and just saw working with kids as a hobby. However, who says that you have to be a teacher to work with kids?
Who says that teachers actually hate their lives? I have so many friends today from my generation who have a very high interest in becoming teachers, and even though I may not have that same interest, teaching isn’t something I’m going to put shame on.
Truthfully, I did love being a “teacher” for all of these little, and even though I left the camp at age 18, after five years of working there and being a camper there since I was 6, I knew my life as a camp counselor is something I’ll hang onto. And who knows, maybe someday I’ll want to make this interaction even bigger someday. To be determined.
