The Truth About Camp

When I was 13 years old, I went to a week-long church camp. I was put in a bunkhouse with about 20 girls. We were divided into two groups of 10 - each group having a camp counselor. 

My bunkmate was my friend, Rachael. I was also fortunate to be randomly put in the same group as my friend Lynsie and her bunkmate, Lindsey. Overall, camp might have been great, but we had some girls in our cabin that were mean. I won't go into all the details, but we spent those few days at camp worrying about these girls finding a reason to make fun of us after witnessing them being mean to some of the other girls. 

For one of the nights, we had to pack up our stuff and go on a short hike for an "overnighter." On the overnighter, we had to dig a latrine and set up tarps around it. We tied a log to two trees to serve as our "toilet seat," and then we got to spend 24 hours doing our business in the woods. 

I have always had some outdoor bathrooming anxiety. To this day, I am paranoid about being seen while going in the forest. I'm also worried about peeing all over myself and stepping in someone else's poop (which happened to me once while camping with my family). At camp, I was so scared that someone would walk in on me in the latrine that I could not go to the bathroom. I decided I was just going to have to hold it for those 24 hours. I thought I was going to make it, but I was very distraught to wake up in the middle of the night to my bladder releasing in my sleeping bag. 

Yup. I peed the bed at camp. 

I lay there for several minutes among the mean girls sleeping on a gigantic tarp trying to figure out what to do. No one could know! Those girls would rip me apart if they had any hint of what had happened. I had to resolve the problem by dark of night and never speak of it!

I was able to reach my backpack and discreetly change my clothes inside my sleeping bag without waking anyone up. I was very lucky to have not gotten very much pee in my bed - most of it was on my clothes. I rolled my pee jammies up just so and tucked them in my backpack. I tiptoed to the latrine to finish what I'd started and protected my deep, dark secret for the rest of camp, which required me to spend one more night sleeping in my pee bag and crossing my fingers that the mean girls wouldn't detect the smell. I was never more grateful to be home than I was after that camp. 

Recently I had a change in church assignments. For almost four years, I was the music leader for the children, and then in November of last year, I was asked to work with the teenage girls. The 13 year olds will be going to that same camp this summer. In a recent meeting with some other church leaders, they were talking about this camp and saying how wonderful it is and how the girls will make life-long friends and have such a good time. 

And I was like...

And I realized just how damaged I still am from that experience. 

So next year when my daughter has the chance to go, I'm going to be the most helicopterest mother you ever saw. I'll pack her Depends. I'll sneak her a satellite phone. I'll park out on the street with binoculars and a luggable loo.

Just lemme be.