To the women who spent eight weeks of their summers taking care of me (and 12 other girls),

The terrible twos have nothing on the terrible pre-teens. Now that I have done my time as a counselor, I feel like I can fully appreciate everything each of you did for me. Living in a cabin in West Virginia with more than 10 other people and completely outnumbered by the 13-year-olds is not easy. I’ve spent a lot time thinking about those summers and the high school and college-age girls who took care of me. I am eternally grateful and very apologetic but, you’ll read that soon enough.

First of all, thank you for listening (and somehow following) every interconnected love triangle and best friend alliances that were formed and broken and reformed all in one day. I still remember the summer before middle school when a 10-way battle of the silent treatment had broken out. You sat down with every single one of us individually and listened to us complain about someone who wore our shirt or talked to a boy and somehow, we were all friends again.

Thank you for putting chocolate icing on your front teeth and walking around the dining hall and handing people napkins and asking them to help you get it off. You showed me that it’s okay to be silly (and that life is much more fun that way).

(I'm almost positive that the writers of "Bridesmaids" got the idea from you)

Thank you for responding to all of my Facebook messages. Even the one where I just told you about how I had gotten my period for the first time. I tried to remember everything you had told Lilly the previous summer when you taught her to put a tampon in from outside of the bathroom door that day we had pool games.

Thank you for showing me the type of person I would like to be someday.

But also, I would like to apologize for some things. Sorry, for that time that you told us to respect you more and we responded by singing "Respect" by Aretha Franklin for the rest of the day. If my kids did that this past summer, I would have made them sleep outside.

Sorry for all the times that we said we brushed our teeth when we really didn’t. Especially us top bunkers. If we didn’t feel like getting down, we were not going to. I cannot imagine how bad our breath smelled. You still let us sit on your laps though.

Sorry that I cried when you cousin asked me to the camp dance. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to say yes or no and the pressure was too much.

Sorry for accusing you of dating every boy that you spoke to. Not only is it kind of frustrating, but it was also super heteronormative. I’ll blame it on the early 2000s.

Sorry for that time we decided to wear as much clothing as possible. And sorry for putting it all in our laundry bags and then complaining that we had no clean clothes.

Sorry for all the times we asked you if boys our age were cute. Now that I have experienced it, I know that a 20-year-old girl does not want to judge the attractiveness of seventh-grade boys.

Sorry that we would never go to sleep ever and we were so loud at one in the morning. We were not at all considerate of the fact that you were exhausted and would have to wake all of us up in 6 hours.

Sorry for not waking up in the mornings and complaining about being tired. You were right, we should have gone to sleep earlier.

Sorry for all the complaining! I truly cannot express how annoying we must have been. One of my campers whined about being hungry this summer while pouring a bowl of cereal. I flung a French toast stick at her (don't worry, she laughed). I have a feeling you would have had much more patience.

But also, why in the world did you let us wear outfits that consisted entirely of tie-dye? You taught us how to cut a t-shirt and make it into a skirt. Then we used the extra fabric as headbands and bracelets. And by we, I mean me because yes, that’s me in the front.

I’m still not sure how you made it through all of those summers without killing at least one of us. I was only able to do it because I had you as my model for the counselor I always wanted to be. I hope I did you proud.