Oh, the mind of an anxious person is like a wheel constantly turning; it never takes a break and often turns way too fast. Plans that should be fun are often dreadful because of all the thoughts even if they don't cause a complete panic attack. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about.
I made plans to go to the Orioles game last Saturday during the day for my friend Brent's birthday. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm usually hesitant to make definite plans, which is usually because of my anxiety in some way. I had told my friend Brent I would be at the game, but I didn't decide I was definitely going until I woke up that Saturday morning. I went outside for Gia's morning walk and it was sunny and warm; it was a perfect day for a baseball game. I asked my friend Dylan if he wanted to come with me and he said he did. He told me to come to his place in Federal Hill and we would leave my car there and walk to the stadium. I wasn't sure about this idea because I like to have my car close in case I need to leave suddenly. I needed more details like how far his place was to the stadium and what the route to get there was.
I left early and started driving to the stadium. My plan was to tell him that I was early so I would just park somewhere and he could meet me there even though parking in a garage would cost money and parking at his place was free. But as I got closer, I didn't know what garage to park in or how exactly to get to the stadium. I knew my car wasn't going to be close no matter what. I like going to places with parking lots so I can easily get back to my car. I thought about turning around and going home because it all seemed like too much trouble, but Dylan called me as I was driving through the city. He was ready and wanted me to come over. I decided I would just do that.
I parked my car in his driveway and then started asking him how far the it was and how to get there. I told him I didn't like not knowing how to get back to my car; I don't like to have to rely on anyone else to get anywhere. He told me it was about a half a mile then he said three-quarters of a mile then he said about a mile. I don't think he really knew. I asked him if he thought we should drive, but he said he didn't think we would find a spot. I told him he I would prefer to drive. He said he didn't understand how I could run 13 miles, but I didn't want to walk one mile. That's something people often don't understand; it's just different. I could walk miles and miles in circles, but I couldn't walk the same amount of miles away from my home or a comfortable place to me. It's all about distance and control and being able to get back to comfort.
After having a conversation about this for a few minutes, he said we were walking because it would be good for me in more ways than one. When we got about a half mile from my car, he asked if I was doing okay. He asked me lots of questions and kept me talking so I wouldn't think about being away from my car. It was probably a two mile walk to the stadium, but it wasn't bad at all. Once we got there, we got beers then found my friend Brent and all his friends. We ended up having a lot of fun and meeting a few new awesome people.
I didn't remember how to get back to the car, so I had to rely on Dylan to get me there. I guess you have to let other people take car of you sometimes. The sun was going down as we walked back to his place, but it was still so warm out. I didn't think at all about how far we were from my car and before I knew it we were back. The walk home seemed a lot shorter than the walk there; it always does.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Six Flags
Cindy and I went to Six Flags on a random Friday last summer. Cindy met me at my apartment and I drove from there. Although I'm more comfortable being a passenger than I used to be, I still prefer to drive to places I may get anxious. Cindy knew this and was prepared for a potential panic attack on the way.
Six Flags is about 50 miles from my apartment. We started the drive on 695 then got on 97 then Crain Highway then we were supposed to get on Route 214, but there was some traffic, so we had to take some back roads. We turned around right by my friend Holly's house in Crofton, so I knew where I was and I didn't feel too anxious. From there, I can't tell you where we went. We got on this back road and passed lots of grass and fields; I was looking forward to turning in five miles like my GPS said. Once we got to the turn, it said I had to stay on that road for ten more miles before turning. This made my hands a little shaky and my mind a little racey. We were about to be about fifteen miles from the last highway that I knew of since I couldn't predict if there would be one up ahead. I wanted to turn around, but I kept driving. Clenching my fists around the steering wheel, I stared ahead and kept going. Cindy knew I was anxious and convinced me to keep going.
We passed more grass, corn fields, and a few houses. It didn't seem like we were heading towards a Six Flags in a suburb of D.C., but as the miles decreased the lanes in the road increased and soon enough we saw a sign for Six Flags. We pulled into the parking lot around 11:00 a.m. Cindy, correct me if I'm wrong on that information. We decided that we needed to leave by 2:00 p.m. to avoid the rush hour traffic. Most of the time I was there, I was worried about hitting traffic on the way home though my anxiety did subside a little bit when we walked through the gates.
We went right to the water park. We put our stuff in a locker and wore just our bathing suits. We looked at the high water slides and decided to start with a mid-sized one. It wasn't straight down or too long. It had a drop at the end, but it wasn't too extreme. We grabbed tubes and walked up the wet, never-ending spiral stairs. Once we got the the top, I wanted to go back down. We were up high looking down at the all the stairs we had just walked up. It would take a few minutes to push past the people lining up behind us to get back down. I knew the slide would be faster. Cindy said we had to face our fears and go down the slide so I listened to her and went down it. It was fun and the ride was over in only a few seconds.
It's ridiculous how much thought it takes to go down one water slide. This is just how my mind works. I wish I could turn off all the anxiety/thoughts/overthinking, but if I did I would be a different person.
Cindy and I spent the next couple hours going up stairs and down slides and each time I thought about it a little bit less. By the end, I was enjoying the slides more than I was hating the stairs. We floated in the lazy river and went down a few kiddie slides. Each time I got to the top of a water slide, I glanced in the distance at the road to make sure there wasn't a back-up or too much traffic. It looked clear and we were sticking to our time schedule.
After the water park, Cindy wanted to get on one roller coaster. The thought of being trapped a small car slowly going up a hill just to quickly fall down it just felt like one big panic attack to me. All growing up and through high school, I loved roller coasters. I always wanted to go on the biggest and best ones wherever we were. Years later, looking up at the hills and the inability to get off gave me a post-panic attack headache without even having one. I needed a sprite. Cindy decided to skip the rollercoaster because she didn't think riding one by herself would be that much fun. We needed to be back to the car by 2:00 p.m. anyway and that time was approaching.
The first few miles of a drive home from anywhere always gives me some anxiety because I don't know what's ahead. I don't know if it's going to be a smooth drive or if there's a back-up on a highway far from my home that I don't know how to get around. This drive home was perfect. We didn't have to take the country back roads; we got right on Route 214 which took us to Crain Highway then to 97 then back to 695. We didn't hit any traffic and I didn't have a panic attack. I was relieved for myself and for Cindy that neither of those things happened. Now hopefully she will go back again with me this summer.
Six Flags is about 50 miles from my apartment. We started the drive on 695 then got on 97 then Crain Highway then we were supposed to get on Route 214, but there was some traffic, so we had to take some back roads. We turned around right by my friend Holly's house in Crofton, so I knew where I was and I didn't feel too anxious. From there, I can't tell you where we went. We got on this back road and passed lots of grass and fields; I was looking forward to turning in five miles like my GPS said. Once we got to the turn, it said I had to stay on that road for ten more miles before turning. This made my hands a little shaky and my mind a little racey. We were about to be about fifteen miles from the last highway that I knew of since I couldn't predict if there would be one up ahead. I wanted to turn around, but I kept driving. Clenching my fists around the steering wheel, I stared ahead and kept going. Cindy knew I was anxious and convinced me to keep going.
We passed more grass, corn fields, and a few houses. It didn't seem like we were heading towards a Six Flags in a suburb of D.C., but as the miles decreased the lanes in the road increased and soon enough we saw a sign for Six Flags. We pulled into the parking lot around 11:00 a.m. Cindy, correct me if I'm wrong on that information. We decided that we needed to leave by 2:00 p.m. to avoid the rush hour traffic. Most of the time I was there, I was worried about hitting traffic on the way home though my anxiety did subside a little bit when we walked through the gates.
We went right to the water park. We put our stuff in a locker and wore just our bathing suits. We looked at the high water slides and decided to start with a mid-sized one. It wasn't straight down or too long. It had a drop at the end, but it wasn't too extreme. We grabbed tubes and walked up the wet, never-ending spiral stairs. Once we got the the top, I wanted to go back down. We were up high looking down at the all the stairs we had just walked up. It would take a few minutes to push past the people lining up behind us to get back down. I knew the slide would be faster. Cindy said we had to face our fears and go down the slide so I listened to her and went down it. It was fun and the ride was over in only a few seconds.
It's ridiculous how much thought it takes to go down one water slide. This is just how my mind works. I wish I could turn off all the anxiety/thoughts/overthinking, but if I did I would be a different person.
Cindy and I spent the next couple hours going up stairs and down slides and each time I thought about it a little bit less. By the end, I was enjoying the slides more than I was hating the stairs. We floated in the lazy river and went down a few kiddie slides. Each time I got to the top of a water slide, I glanced in the distance at the road to make sure there wasn't a back-up or too much traffic. It looked clear and we were sticking to our time schedule.
After the water park, Cindy wanted to get on one roller coaster. The thought of being trapped a small car slowly going up a hill just to quickly fall down it just felt like one big panic attack to me. All growing up and through high school, I loved roller coasters. I always wanted to go on the biggest and best ones wherever we were. Years later, looking up at the hills and the inability to get off gave me a post-panic attack headache without even having one. I needed a sprite. Cindy decided to skip the rollercoaster because she didn't think riding one by herself would be that much fun. We needed to be back to the car by 2:00 p.m. anyway and that time was approaching.
The first few miles of a drive home from anywhere always gives me some anxiety because I don't know what's ahead. I don't know if it's going to be a smooth drive or if there's a back-up on a highway far from my home that I don't know how to get around. This drive home was perfect. We didn't have to take the country back roads; we got right on Route 214 which took us to Crain Highway then to 97 then back to 695. We didn't hit any traffic and I didn't have a panic attack. I was relieved for myself and for Cindy that neither of those things happened. Now hopefully she will go back again with me this summer.
I didn't write this, but I had to share it...Date a Girl Who Reads...
Date A Girl Who Reads by Rosemarie Urquico Posted: February 16, 2011 by dyanxtine in poetic much
Tags: books, date, girl, love, read
Tags: books, date, girl, love, read
6
(In Response to Charles Warnke’s You Should Date An Illiterate Girl.)
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Camp Sunrise
I do things better when I do them for other people; I am not enough to push myself to do something that makes me anxious. Other people give me the drive to do things if I am emotionally invested in that person or group of people. I was in love with Lindsey and therefore wanted to do things and go places with her and for her. Our love was bigger than me; it was more important than me.
When we broke up, I needed to find something bigger than me with which I would become emotionally attached to pull me out of my daily, comfortable life and I found that last summer. I volunteered for a week at a camp called Camp Sunrise, which is for kids who have or have had cancer. The camp was located in White Hall, Maryland, which is about 40 miles from my apartment, and it's out in the middle of nowhere. It's far from highways, main roads, and escape routes. One of the characteristics or people with agoraphobia, including myself, is the need to be able to escape quickly to a place of comfort. This inability to escape is why traveling far distances is a problem for me and for other people. This is also why I prefer going places that are right off major highways; even four or five miles off a highway can make me feel so far away and make me anxious. Being out in the middle of nowhere far from highways is a situation that would cause me to have a panic attack. This didn't stop me from going to camp because I knew that the experience would be bigger than me, and I had already committed to being there for the kids. I didn't do a practice drive to camp before that week; I knew I would make it because it wasn't about me.
The first day was harder than I thought it would be. The campers weren't there yet; it was just counselors and other staff members and most people already knew each other. It felt just like starting a new school or job: out of place and awkward. I'm sure all of you know the feeling and the uncertainty: who will I sit with at the next meal? who will I talk to during downtime?, etc...Fortunately, I became friends with a girl in my cabin who was also new to camp. The day was long, but I got through it without too many moments with no one to talk to.
I started getting a little nervous as the sun was going down and the day was coming to an end. I knew I was going to have trouble sleeping and for an anxious person, sleep is essential; next to too much alcohol, lack of sleep is what causes me more anxiety than anything else. In regular life, I drink bedtime tea every night and I read then I fall asleep to some sitcom like Everybody Loves Raymond or Kind of Queens. I have my fan by my bed for noise and so that I don't get too hot. I sleep well and I sleep more than most people. I get about nine hours of sleep every night, and I need all of that. If I don't get it, I'm not tired and groggy; instead, I have lots of anxious energy. It makes me feel crazy.
The first night at camp, I tried putting bedtime tea bags in a cup of cold water and tried to read before I attempted to fall asleep. Neither effort worked. I didn't sleep at all that first night. I tried reading, counting things in my head, and going outside and walking around but nothing helped. It makes it almost impossible to sleep when you know you're going to have trouble and when you're trying not to wake up the other people in your cabin. I didn't know how I was going to make it through the whole week.
The kids got there that morning and everything changed. I knew that even if I didn't sleep at all, I would make it through the week of camp. I was a counselor in a cabin with the youngest girls. We rounded them up and helped them get their luggage off the truck. They were so small trying to pull and carry their big bags and suitcases. Some of them had bald heads and some had hair; some of them were in treatment and some were survivors, but all of them either had or were experiencing something so scary that no child should ever have to experience.
Throughout the week, I got to know all of the girls in my cabin really well. One girl loved to read and was a really great artist; one loved to play sports and tried to act much older than she was; a few talked a lot and a couple were really quiet; one didn't like to touch the door because of all the germs; one girl hugged me before bed every night; another one was really homesick at the beginning of the week but fell in love with camp by the end of the week.
I got a little bit more sleep each night I was there. I told the counselors in my cabin that I would do polar bear swim, which is taking the campers to the pool at 7:00 a.m. for a 20 minute swim before breakfast. The young girls loved this, but the number who got up was dwindling by the day. Friday was the last day of polar bear swim and I was pretty exhausted from the week and we were trying to decide who would go to polar bear swim. I thought about trying to sleep a little later the next day since one of the other counselors said she would go because she hadn't gone all week. The camper who had been homesick earlier in the week came to me and asked me if I would take them because she wanted me to get in the pool with her. I said I would love to. That same camper had not been swimming earlier in the week because she had a central line in and didn't want to go through the trouble of getting it covered to swim, but we convinced her that it was no trouble. That Friday morning I woke the three girls up who wanted to go to polar bear swim and we went to medical to get her central line covered then headed to the pool. The water was cold but it was worth it to see the once homesick camper swimming, smiling, and splashing with the other girls, which she had not done earlier in the week. That was one of my favorite moments from camp.
I went to Towson Fest with my friend Jess from Salisbury, my friend Sarah from work, and a few others. Jess and I were walking around and I saw the camper who hugged me goodnight every night before bed on the other side of the street. It was the first time since camp that I saw one of my campers out in public. My group was all young girls so you don't really keep in touch with them. I sent them pictures after camp but that was it. I thought I was going to cry because I was so excited to see this camper. She didn't see me the first time I walked by her, so I told Jess we had to go back and walk towards her again so she would see me. She saw me that time and came up and gave me a big hug. She told me she would be at camp this summer and I told her I would be too.
The following day, I was grocery shopping in Giant when I looked up and saw the camper who was homesick on one of the Triple Winner posters in the store. I almost cried again and then I stopped to take a picture of it with my phone. Next time you're in the Giant checkout line, think about donating $1 for a Triple Winner scratch off because all the money goes to pediatric cancer research and you will most likely win something from Giant. I won a free sponge with my scratch off. And make sure you look at the signs because you will see my one of my campers and other pediatric oncology patients.
Seeing one camper in person and one on a sign has got me really excited for camp this year. It's being held in Annapolis this year and I know I'll get there and not sleep, but I'll stay and, again, it will be the best week of my summer and I know even if I'm anxious, it will be worth it because being a part of Camp Sunrise is something that is bigger than me.
When we broke up, I needed to find something bigger than me with which I would become emotionally attached to pull me out of my daily, comfortable life and I found that last summer. I volunteered for a week at a camp called Camp Sunrise, which is for kids who have or have had cancer. The camp was located in White Hall, Maryland, which is about 40 miles from my apartment, and it's out in the middle of nowhere. It's far from highways, main roads, and escape routes. One of the characteristics or people with agoraphobia, including myself, is the need to be able to escape quickly to a place of comfort. This inability to escape is why traveling far distances is a problem for me and for other people. This is also why I prefer going places that are right off major highways; even four or five miles off a highway can make me feel so far away and make me anxious. Being out in the middle of nowhere far from highways is a situation that would cause me to have a panic attack. This didn't stop me from going to camp because I knew that the experience would be bigger than me, and I had already committed to being there for the kids. I didn't do a practice drive to camp before that week; I knew I would make it because it wasn't about me.
The first day was harder than I thought it would be. The campers weren't there yet; it was just counselors and other staff members and most people already knew each other. It felt just like starting a new school or job: out of place and awkward. I'm sure all of you know the feeling and the uncertainty: who will I sit with at the next meal? who will I talk to during downtime?, etc...Fortunately, I became friends with a girl in my cabin who was also new to camp. The day was long, but I got through it without too many moments with no one to talk to.
I started getting a little nervous as the sun was going down and the day was coming to an end. I knew I was going to have trouble sleeping and for an anxious person, sleep is essential; next to too much alcohol, lack of sleep is what causes me more anxiety than anything else. In regular life, I drink bedtime tea every night and I read then I fall asleep to some sitcom like Everybody Loves Raymond or Kind of Queens. I have my fan by my bed for noise and so that I don't get too hot. I sleep well and I sleep more than most people. I get about nine hours of sleep every night, and I need all of that. If I don't get it, I'm not tired and groggy; instead, I have lots of anxious energy. It makes me feel crazy.
The first night at camp, I tried putting bedtime tea bags in a cup of cold water and tried to read before I attempted to fall asleep. Neither effort worked. I didn't sleep at all that first night. I tried reading, counting things in my head, and going outside and walking around but nothing helped. It makes it almost impossible to sleep when you know you're going to have trouble and when you're trying not to wake up the other people in your cabin. I didn't know how I was going to make it through the whole week.
The kids got there that morning and everything changed. I knew that even if I didn't sleep at all, I would make it through the week of camp. I was a counselor in a cabin with the youngest girls. We rounded them up and helped them get their luggage off the truck. They were so small trying to pull and carry their big bags and suitcases. Some of them had bald heads and some had hair; some of them were in treatment and some were survivors, but all of them either had or were experiencing something so scary that no child should ever have to experience.
Throughout the week, I got to know all of the girls in my cabin really well. One girl loved to read and was a really great artist; one loved to play sports and tried to act much older than she was; a few talked a lot and a couple were really quiet; one didn't like to touch the door because of all the germs; one girl hugged me before bed every night; another one was really homesick at the beginning of the week but fell in love with camp by the end of the week.
I got a little bit more sleep each night I was there. I told the counselors in my cabin that I would do polar bear swim, which is taking the campers to the pool at 7:00 a.m. for a 20 minute swim before breakfast. The young girls loved this, but the number who got up was dwindling by the day. Friday was the last day of polar bear swim and I was pretty exhausted from the week and we were trying to decide who would go to polar bear swim. I thought about trying to sleep a little later the next day since one of the other counselors said she would go because she hadn't gone all week. The camper who had been homesick earlier in the week came to me and asked me if I would take them because she wanted me to get in the pool with her. I said I would love to. That same camper had not been swimming earlier in the week because she had a central line in and didn't want to go through the trouble of getting it covered to swim, but we convinced her that it was no trouble. That Friday morning I woke the three girls up who wanted to go to polar bear swim and we went to medical to get her central line covered then headed to the pool. The water was cold but it was worth it to see the once homesick camper swimming, smiling, and splashing with the other girls, which she had not done earlier in the week. That was one of my favorite moments from camp.
I went to Towson Fest with my friend Jess from Salisbury, my friend Sarah from work, and a few others. Jess and I were walking around and I saw the camper who hugged me goodnight every night before bed on the other side of the street. It was the first time since camp that I saw one of my campers out in public. My group was all young girls so you don't really keep in touch with them. I sent them pictures after camp but that was it. I thought I was going to cry because I was so excited to see this camper. She didn't see me the first time I walked by her, so I told Jess we had to go back and walk towards her again so she would see me. She saw me that time and came up and gave me a big hug. She told me she would be at camp this summer and I told her I would be too.
The following day, I was grocery shopping in Giant when I looked up and saw the camper who was homesick on one of the Triple Winner posters in the store. I almost cried again and then I stopped to take a picture of it with my phone. Next time you're in the Giant checkout line, think about donating $1 for a Triple Winner scratch off because all the money goes to pediatric cancer research and you will most likely win something from Giant. I won a free sponge with my scratch off. And make sure you look at the signs because you will see my one of my campers and other pediatric oncology patients.
Seeing one camper in person and one on a sign has got me really excited for camp this year. It's being held in Annapolis this year and I know I'll get there and not sleep, but I'll stay and, again, it will be the best week of my summer and I know even if I'm anxious, it will be worth it because being a part of Camp Sunrise is something that is bigger than me.
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