An amazing thing happens when you go to camp, you meet awesome people and make great memories. Now imagine what happens when you go to the same camp for multiple years (try six years to be exact) – imagine all the memories you get to make with such amazing people. It’s very odd how things happen when you go to camp, it’s a place where you are truly yourself. No one knows anything else about you, and all of a sudden you are closer to your cabin mates than you are to any of your friends at home. You tell them all of your deep dark secrets, mostly because you know that at the end of the week you go back to your home and they go back to their home.

This past weekend I met up with my two best friends from camp. We haven’t all three been together in two years thanks to school and travel. Dinner lasted about four hours, and probably would have lasted longer if Katie’s brother wasn’t texting her about how badly he wanted to go home. Topics ranged from school to jobs to boyfriends to friends we like to people we don’t like, the list goes on. I can – and do – tell these girls everything. These girls are two of the strongest girls I know who have handled bullying, terrible boyfriends, living in foreign countries and who have helped me through a multitude of issues. This week's article not only goes out to my best friends from camp, but all of the strong women I have met at camp over the years.

Some of the strongest people you will ever meet at a camp are the counselors. These are ladies who dedicate over a week of their life to you. They will mom you in every way possible from making sure you have enough to eat to encouraging you to perform in front of everyone when you’re scared to giving you pep talks about holding your own. One of the most memorable moments I will ever have is from my senior year of camp. I took a belly dancing class with our director, and she started tearing up talking about how all she wanted for us girls was to find a place where we felt as accepted and loved as she did with her belly dancing class. How could someone like that not be one of the biggest role models and inspirations for me?

I’m friends with almost all of my former camp counselors on Facebook. I see their posts often – one just had another child, one quit her job because it made her unhappy, one is finishing up her education, and another is still single and making it on her own. Each one shows me that I don’t have to have my life figured out right now, I can, and will, figure it out as I go along. If I choose to be a mother, so be it! If I choose one career but end up in another, so be it! If I need to take time for myself, so be it! I applaud each and every woman for helping shape me into a strong person not only in faith, but also in personality. For listening to me when I needed an ear, for teaching important lessons, and most of all, for teaching me how to stand up to those who try to wrong me and others.

As I begin teaching others, I try to encapsulate everything that I looked up to in these women. I cannot offer enough thanks to all of my counselors (including all the fabulous male counselors!) for their guidance throughout the years. It is my hope that I can one day help guide others as much as all of you guided me. I hope that I am teaching them things such as discipline, compassion, and passion. Thank you all for everything you have done for me, and for everything you continue to teach me.