Camp Glen Spey was more than just another camp.

It's a hard thing for myself to admit, but I don't think I will ever move on from the news of my childhood camp, Camp Glen Spey, closing residency camp. I may tell people that I am fine with it, that I have accepted it. I had my peace with last summer being my last summer because since I was supposed to be an adult, I was supposed to do important adult things involving my potential career, but I was only able to make peace because residency camp was still going to be around, I could still visit, there was the potential of coming back one day if life allowed it. The residency portion closing essentially slammed a door in my face, damaging the threads that held me together. There are people who do not understand how much a camp like Glen Spey actually does for someone.

Before I can talk about what camp did for me, it is necessary to explain what was going on in my life outside of camp. After my first summer, I was going into 6th grade. In my memory, 6th grade was a pivotal shift in terms of my mental health and my social ability. There was one girl who got everyone to stop talking to me because I was a "poser" due to the fact that I wore Happy Bunny clothing after she did. I found a good friend in one girl, Sarah, near the end of the school year, but she moved that summer. I started seeing a therapist in 7th grade, although I cannot remember what I told my mother or what she knew when she set it up. I did a lot of things in my life, a lot of extra curricular activities. I attended a Saturday enrichment program at Montclair State University, I had eventually started horseback riding, and I had my Girl Scout Troop. My life was busy, and most of it did not revolve around people that I went to school with. I slowly became more distant to those who I went to school with and there were conflicts with other students as you might expect from anyone in middle school. I do remember that during 7th and 8th grade, at least once in each year I had thoughts of suicide. I thought about how kids at school would react to me being gone, if they would even notice. I never did anything, but the thoughts were still there. I even thought of different ways to do it, but like I said, nothing ever happened. I couldn't even get to the point of actually harming myself. There was something deep in my mind that wouldn't let me try, and today, I am always thankful for that little voice, that thing that wouldn't let me do anything.

Camp was that breath of fresh air each summer. The Girl Scout councils were split by counties at the time, I lived in Morris county and the residency camp for our council closed after the first year I went. The Bergen county Girl Scout council had a residency camp and it was fortunate that I live roughly 10-15 minutes from the council office in Bergen. With a small out of council fee, I could go to their camp, Camp Glen Spey. When I went to Glen Spey, I didn't know anyone, and no one knew who I had been, or who I was molded to be in the eyes of my peers. There was no one who had an old yearbook with the picture of my with a silly mushroom cut, no one who knew where I fell in the brutal middle school hierarchy. I could be who ever I wanted to be, and that's exactly what I did. Yes, I still struggled with my ADHD, yes, I was still had a difficult time socializing, but no one knew that. All they knew was that I was some hyperactive kid who found joy in just about anything new that I learned, and I learned a lot. Every year I came back, I knew more about the working of camp, I enjoyed helping out the councilors with the opening rule spiels, I enjoyed teaching my fellow campers. The people I met there helped me through the tough years of middle school. The big thing back then was instant messenger. When I would get home from school, I would log on and talk to those who I met at camp. When I was having a bad day or the kids at school were being extra evil, I'd tell them about it and I would receive overwhelming responses of, "If I was there I'd show them a thing or two." or "They are just stupid, they don't know you." I think without camp and the people I met there I might not have survived middle school as well as I had.

When it came time for high school, I got a breath of fresh air. Due to the fact that Lincoln Park is so small, we do not have a high school. We go to the high school two towns over, in Boonton. The significant thing is that only about half the kids from Lincoln Park Middle School and about half the kids from Boonton's middle school actually went to the high school. The other half went to either the Morris county vocational schools or a catholic high school in the area. Half the kids who knew me left my school system and I met as many new kids who didn't know my. The mixing of these groups also upsets the hierarchical structure, much like mixing groups of animals. Each group has it's own hierarchy that must be reworked into a whole new hierarchy. I was able to find a group of people to call my own, in a way. Camp still helped with that hand of sanity each summer.

In the spring of freshman year, I came out as a lesbian. It was rough getting to that point, and I have to admit that without camp, I would have never gotten there. I probably would not have figured it out on my own as quickly as I did. And I am not saying that going to camp made me gay, that's not it at all. It was the people I met. There was this one girl, who I became attached to. We would almost always be in the same unit and we became really good friends. One summer, she told me she was bisexual. I had never really thought about liking girls as a possibility in life. Growing up, we are programmed to believe that heterosexual relationships are it. Boys crush on girls, girls crush on boys, and that is just how things were done. Although I had crushes on boys in middle school, they were really because society dictated that women are to think of men romantically and vice versa. That's what you were supposed to do. Once I realized that liking girls was a possibility, I started to think back. Of course, it made me really confused and very scattered on the topic of relationships. It's like when you have an engineer who is made to believe that there is only one option to solve a puzzle and they somehow try to make it work, but then someone shows up and says, "you can try it this way." and for that specific engineer, that other solution works better, the puzzle starts to make sense. I talked a lot with her and then a few others who knew, trying to figure myself out. I received a lot of encouragement from those people. Camp even introduced me to my second girlfriend, a camper that I had been at camp with for at least 3 years, whom I had become good friends with.

My last year as a camper instilled a sense of pride in what I had built for myself. That last year, almost all of the sessions I had tried to sign up for had been canceled because not enough people had signed up for then. The camp director knew who I was, knew how I was at camp and offered me a chance to participate in their CIT program that they were reviving that year. It was supposed to be only for those going into their senior year so that after they graduate, they can become staff. I was a junior when I was offered this but I decided to take it any way. The fact that my love for being at camp was noticed by the important people to the degree that they offered me a chance to do something big while I was a year too young for it gave me an unbelievable amount of pride. During that year of camp, we were able to create a plan that allowed me to work that following year. The camp can hire one underage lifeguard each season; if I got my lifeguard certification that coming year, I would be hired as their underage lifeguard for that summer. If it wasn't for camp, I probably would have never even considered getting a lifeguard certification. After that underage year, I worked for three more years, ending with this past summer.

This next part is sort of like a summary of lessons learned, but not actually at the same time. To tell about the "moral of the story" I would have to explain what led me to realize the moral. I go to a Coming Out Support Group that is facilitated by one of the LGBT groups on campus. The topic came up about the difficulty of meeting people and making friends in a large campus, about how difficult it is for introverts to reach out and start a conversation with other people. I had told these people about camp, what it did for me, and they were there to help me through the initial shock of the residency camp closing, because I couldn't handle it at all be myself. Someone made a comment about how I was a seemingly extroverted person. I went on to try to explain how the person they had begun to know was not the same person I was outside of that space. That space is very much like camp, but in it's own way. In that group, the expectation is that everyone is going there to work through something; you get to see behind the wall before you see the wall. In terms of camp, I use the metaphor of sand turning into glass for making friends. Outside of camp, making friends is very difficult and time consuming, but eventually it happens, just like sand turning into glass over time with natural pressure. Going to camp, you are taking a shovel of sand and throwing it into a pressurized furnace. The sand becomes glass very quickly, which can also lead to the glass fracturing. The good thing about that type of pressurized system, is that within as little time as a week, to as long as the season which was four weeks, you either had a good friend, or someone you detested. In the latter, you at least know that there is no potential for further friendship.

So I guess the moral is that people, more specifically introverts, need camp. They need a camp where they know no one else, where they can become who they really are. Who I was at camp was never who I was at home. At home, in school, I was Brianna. At camp, I was Mortykins. I was two very distinct people and I knew that who I was at camp was who I truly was, who I naturally was. When I reached college, more specifically in my sophomore year, who I was outside of camp began to match who I was at camp. Without camp, I would have never known who I was supposed to naturally be, I would never have been able to differentiate between who I needed to be in order to be sane and happy and who I was supposed to be in the eyes of society. Now, I've become Mordecai, the real world Mortykins. At home and in class, I am still Brianna, that will probably never change. Socially, I am closer to that true self. At camp, someone once told me why they liked me so much, it was because I was raw. Not raw as in damaged, or wounded. Raw as in natural, not molded or masked. Everyone needs a chance to be able to discover their raw selves.

What bothers me the most about the closing of Glen Spey's residency camp? The countless number of young girls who will not be able to discover their raw, natural selves. The countless number of girls who will forever be stuck, trapped under their peers who will never know what it's like to be free.

Because without camp, none of what I have just told you would have happened.