Growing Up AYC

As I think about the past seven years of AYC, it feels strange to consider what my life would have been like without the 14 total weeks I spent with fellow campers over the years. It is amazing how only two weeks out of a whole year can transform someone so profoundly.

For the first 12 years of my life, I was never one for talking. It is something I have always struggled with. Knowing this, my first day of AYC 2008 was an awkward time. I remember entering after everyone had already arrived—and there was not one face I knew.

My father happened to stay for lunch that day. With no one else to sit with, I ate alone with him. At the time, I thought that the rest of camp would be like this—me sitting alone not talking with anyone. That is what would have happened if I was among kids at school.

Thankfully, I was at AYC where everyone is there to help you succeed. I was surrounded by people who went out of their way to make sure I was included.

There were two or three campers in particular who really worked to crack my shell. Any time I sat alone, or did not say much, they prompted me to talk. No matter how much I wanted to maintain my silence, they continued to help me overcome my nervousness.

Their efforts to stifle my shyness, although not completely successful, helped to create a mindset in me of driving myself to start more conversations, be more outgoing, and create new friendships.

By implementing the lessons I learned the first year, initiating and engaging others became easier with each successive camp. Also, the bonds I created with many of the campers became stronger. I felt much closer to them than my classmates back home.

Soon, camp meant more than sports and running around. It became a place where I could reunite with my closest friends from all over the world to share unforgettable experiences.

Whether it was bonds built through working as a team or remaining undefeated during a day of volleyball—only to lose in the first round of the tournament—or deep talks with cabin mates that forged the strongest friendships—I always found myself wishing that the time spent at camp would never turn into a memory—but would instead last forever.

There is a reason that there is a big “tear festival” at the close of AYC with myself, against my own will, becoming a contributor. Driving away from the people you love—knowing it will be an entire year before you see them again—is tough to do. You would think that saying goodbye would become easier each year as you grew older and matured. Yet that goodbye only becomes more difficult each year as you walk away from friends who are twice as close to you as they were the year before.

Now that I have finished my final year of camp, I realize that one does not come away from AYC remembering all the physical activities or the fact that he or she had to run extra laps because cabin mates were late. One comes away from camp remembering the people that made it special.

This is something I did not fully understand my first few years at AYC. Starting with those campers who forced me to open up, though, I have slowly begun to appreciate more and more the true friends I made there whom I will have forever.

Camp is not all about the activities, the lectures, the food, and the fun. It is about the people who get you through the best times and the hardest times. In the end, it is those around you who shape the person you become.