This post is a slightly revised version of a post that ran in April of 2013. My family is approaching a decade of summers spent at the camp I refer to, and just last week I got giddy as I dispensed way too much advice to a friend about to go for their first time. The experience I describe below remains one of the most significant events of my adult life. I hope your summer has included similar moments of grace and truth. If not, you have a few weeks left.
Several years ago now, my family and I were at a place called “Family Camp” in Santa Cruz, California. It’s basically a resort, with lots of fun enriching activities for the whole family. My kids loved it, but then again, what’s not to love about staying up until 10 pm every night with pretty much an entire circus carnival right outside your window.
When we first arrived, I was fairly stressed out. Like, a 9 out of 10, with 10 being complete and utter chaos. Having never been to this “camp experience” before, the learning curve felt very steep. I felt uncomfortable most of the time, trying to figure out the social codes and expectations for me, my husband, and my kids. Because, you know, I’m responsible for it all. Begins with C and ends with ONTROL, people.
I was coming off of a very tough season at work; my workload was highest in the summers, and it was challenging to be so far away from what was going on. I’d gone through a very draining several months following a colleague leaving and lots of pieces falling through the cracks or being dropped altogether. I felt strung out and exhausted the way one does when one is constantly working outside one’s skill set, and I struggled with feeling like I had now arrived at yet another place where I was expected to learn how to function differently than before.
My older son had also just finished a rough year in first grade. We have since found out that he struggles with anxiety, so what was going on for him at age 6 was no small thing. A lot of my burden that summer was worry about him and how long it would take him to catch up to his peers in certain areas, as well as what damage might be done in the meantime. Suffice to say, I watched him like a hawk.
One afternoon, my family and I were hanging out at the pool during “free time”. At some point, my older son got ahold of one of those pool noodles that have holes at both ends and can act like a straw if you tilt them just right under the water. He had just discovered that it’s pretty easy to shoot water out of one end when you do that, and was gleefully shooting me and some other kids/grownups/innocent bystanders. All in good fun, no one getting annoyed….yet. But of course, I was thinking 17 steps ahead and panicking about how to arrest what was sure to be a violent attack on all peaceful pool-dwellers by a scrawny kid armed with a floppy purple pool noodle. The scenes flashed through my mind: would people scatter? Would uniformed agents have to be called? Would the offender be put in a holding cell? What would observers say later? “We thought something was wrong when he wouldn’t stop giggling…we had no idea so much damage could be done by a child with a bit too much Styrofoam. We’ll never swim without goggles again.”
From there, my imagination really takes off. I picture a huge dramatic scene wherein my entire family is escorted from the pool at what is of course the busiest time of the afternoon, causing hundreds of people to stop mid-swim and stare, mouths agape, at our family’s own personal exodus. Of course I am wearing my old ratty bathing suit, stretched out from before two kids ago, the one I usually only wear in the best friends hot tub with just the girlfriends because of course I forgot to pack the one I bought specifically to wear to the pool at camp but haven’t worn yet because its too nice and I don’t want to ruin it. I picture people murmuring disapproval, covering mouths while talking quickly in whispers, the peer group equivalent of flashing lights and sirens. I’m last in line, following my boys and husband in their dripping swim trunks with wet hair sticking up. This way everyone gets a parting shot of my droopy, sagging-even-more-with-the-soggy-stretched-out-old-swimsuit-covered-backside. Oh, the horror. I physically wince at the visual in my mind’s eye.
And then it happens. I look up (in real life now) and see, as if in slow motion, the lifeguard coming towards us. The red one piece, the floater thing on a string, the sunglasses, all of it. She’s total Baywatch, but it’s not like I have time to compare myself to her and come up short like usual because I’m too busy dealing with the rush of adrenalin and panic that comes from knowing your child is in serious danger of being harshly corrected by an adult other than yourself.
She comes over to my son, and asks him his name. He tells her. Then she leans down to his level, looks him right in the eye, and says, “You know, if you hold the noodle up to that jet over there, you can get tons more water and it will shoot straight out of the end. It will go way further and be totally strong. Try it!”
Now, you should know that I hate drama.
I really do. I’m not just saying that but really deep down inside I love it and it’s like a trick I play to get you to be really dramatic and then I’ll fall in love with you. I hated The Notebook, okay? Hated. It.
But I can’t lie to you, friends. What happened in my terrified heart at that moment was maybe one of the most powerful things I’ve ever experienced. It was as if that lifeguard was actually talking directly to me. She was saying: “I know you have been kicked in the stomach again and again and again for the last 8 months. I know you think you eff everything up and whenever you care about something and try to do it well you end up choking in front of everyone. I know you think everything you touch turns to crap. I know you feel like your anxious thoughts and fears and general terror are raging out of control with no antidote in sight. I know you are so scared for your little boy that you can’t sleep at night for fear of doing something even inadvertently that will mess him up even more and you will be even more responsible than you feel right now.
HOWEVER.
This is not who you are. It is not your whole life. It may be what you are surrounded by right now; the water in which you swim at this moment. Yet you are loved and enjoyed, exactly as you are. All the time. Yes you screw up, yes you make mistakes, yes you fail again and again and again. And, you are loved. At every moment. Exactly as you are. As flawed and frightened and fragile as you are. All the time.“
I know not everyone who reads this blog would consider themselves spiritual, but I do. I believe that my higher power communicates with me on a regular basis and gives me guidance and direction when I need it. And, I felt It saying to me, in that very moment, with my son in the pool at Family Camp: “Michele, you are loved. The way the lifeguard sees your son? The way she came and pretty much did the opposite of what you feared, and instead of shaming and rebuking your son, she accepted and encouraged him exactly as he is and loved on him right there? That’s how I feel about you. And not just when you’re a wreck in the pool with your hurting kid and wearing your nasty old bathing suit. All. The. Time.”
Let this be a reminder that whatever you are going through right now does not define you. Also, you are loved. Yes, you are. All The Time.
Now, go get yourself a new bathing suit.