The Rules

You told me I could dish it out, but not take it. I told you, you didn't play by the rules.

Maybe you don't understand the rules.

1. I am not a whore, or a ho, or a slut. Don't call me that.

2. My sex life, or lack there of, my singleness and why no one wants me is not a joke and not something to joke about.

3. Teasing is fun on an even playing field, but one upping each other with subtext is not. If you can't tell the difference you are not paying attention.

4. I may be older, but I am not old. Just because you act like you are four, does not make me sixty.

5. There is nothing funny about rape. There are no jokes about rape that are funny. There is no compromise on that.

6. I may call you tipspit, but I also call you sweetie, sweetheart, cutie, baby and babe. They balance each other out. You rarely if ever call me anything sweet. Therefore there is no balance.

7. If I walk away it is because 1) I know it makes you crazy, 2) I'm not sure about motives anymore, 3) I am protecting myself, but 4) I am also protecting you. I could leave you bleeding and you wouldn't know what hit you. Trust me on that.

8. You cannot make fat jokes about other women and then lecture me about my body image, enjoying life and what I have or have not eaten today.

9. While I do love you very much, I am not in love with you, I am not going to be in love with you, you are not right for me, and I don't want you sexually. I think this is actually mutual.

10. I imagine that if someone who was in love with you watched you and I interact, she wouldn't like it. Our interactions are often and significantly emotionally intimate. You may not be cheating and I may not be doing anything wrong either, but I am not convinced this is right. I wish I was stronger and less desperate for the affection, though I am getting better and stronger. When we joke and tease and laugh and talk and confide I so enjoy it, but after I feel guilty and even a little dirty. Honestly, I guess I feel a little like an emotional prostitute. But, I don't want to be a whore, a ho, or a slut. So, please don't call me that.

I told you that I would give you the rules. You said you reserve the right to edit them. Somehow I doubt you'll see this. So maybe I'll get around to printing it up for you and you can tell me what you think. But these are my rules. I don't actually think they are unreasonable or irrational or stupid. Maybe if you knew what they were you would agree with me. Maybe if you understood the rules, I wouldn't need them.

Inconsistent

How can someone we care about so much make us so angry? How can we say very mean things to someone we care so much about? Why do friendships and relationships and interactions and whatever the heck else we call them have to be complicated, inconsistent and upsetting. Why, when I am discussing these issues with in myself do I become plural (we)?

No, there is nothing to explain, nothing to report, and even if there was, which there isn't, I'd sound crazy, so I'm not going to. (And no, I am not paranoid!)

Mostly, I am really tired. I keep having weird and upsetting nightmares that are not based in reality. I wake up in tears. One was about how my Dad said I had to go back to school and get a degree in economics, and that I would never get a PhD. Then I had one yesterday about people re-arranging my Med Lodge and me quitting when they wouldn't put it back.

Also I am really tired of feeling like I am stuck in a strange game, with no rules, no prize and frankly no point. Again, no, I am not going to explain that. What would be the point?

Oh, and I am starting to think boys are really stupid. I mean, really!

I am completely too old for a lot of this nonsense.

I'm going home for the weekend and am going to spend quality time with Nana, visit my therapist and sleep.

A lot.

Three and a half weeks to go.

Why couldn't this just be simple?

We don't know...

Too Much Information.

Sunday was not a good day. If you know me or are at camp, I am going to be specific, and if you can't handle that, stop reading now.

On Sunday check-in went fine, but I was tired. More tired than usual, maybe. There are some things that are starting to get to me. Not in the sense that I am out of control or am getting hurt so much as they bother me, concern me and I still don't feel like it's right. Anyway.

Rosie came on Sunday. Rosie is my hair dresser. She is a really terrific lady and I have wanted her to meet Drew for some time. They've really hit it off and I see good things for them. In the mean time Rosie is cutting the staff's hair one day a week. She's making camp beautiful, one head at a time. So she came on Sunday and I decided to take her out to dinner, for a little girl talk.

We were gone for less than an hour. In that hour a camper fell and busted a wrist. Not uncommon, and my staff handled it beautifully, but, I wasn't here and I hate that. It makes me feel like it's my fault. So there was that chip. That was almost a rational, reasonable one.

Down-hill from there.

So then I ended up going to sit with some of the staff that was smoking behind one of the cabins. I don't like smoke, but I wanted to be with them, so... They thought it would be funny to tell someone (who cares, theoretically) that I was smoking to. I was handed a cigarette as said individual rounded a corner. I was (irrational I know) expecting them to prove their friendship by knocking it out of my hand, like a good friend should. Their response, "Cool, another smoking buddy!" Now I was ticked off. Like I said, irrational.

Then back in the staff lodge, while one of the metrosexuals was getting high lights, Poje said something about women over thirty who were unmarried being unwanted. I got upset and stormed out of the lodge, and (accidentally) peeled out of the staff area. I was in tears by the time I got back to Med Lodge. Batch was there. He (bless his heart) followed me, would not take no for an answer and simply hugged me until I got it all out. Then acted disappointed when I asked him to step out of my room so I could change. (It was the boost I needed.)

Poje apologized the next day (apparently he thought his life was in danger, but that's not why he apologized) and this morning I have conformation that I was indeed hormonal.

I haven't cried like that in a while. I wonder if it was just a bad day and the wrong moment or if it would have happened regardless.

Oddly, the cigarette thing still bothers me the most and I don't understand why.

I have still never, and will never smoke one, by the way. Yuck!

Benedict

It is always a hard thing to do something you know your friend wouldn't like, but ultimately is probably what is best for them. There is no satisfaction in the probability of correctness. There is even less comfort.

As a teacher I see this kind of problem all the time. Kid A tells Kid B in confidence about a very real problem at home or something terrible that happened, swears Kid B to secrecy and expects B to bear that burden with them. When B makes the right choice and tells an adult, even though the terrible problem is now removed and/or improved, A never forgives B for it.

Lately it seems like I've had to deal with several of those conundrums. Should I share, who should I share it with and what should I share of things I learned in confidence? Even though I believe it will help, even though I think it's probably the right thing to do, even though something had to be done, does that mean I should be the one to do it and is this the right way.

I imagine one of my biggest fears in life is doing the wrong thing and hurting someone. My second biggest may be of being hurt myself. That's a lot of fear to be playing with.

It also comes to an issue of trust. Who do I trust, who trusts me and can I trust another person on someone else's behalf? Is that even fair?

Kid B trusts the adult they tell with Kid A's secret. Hopefully they picked the right adult to put their trust in.

I hope I did the right thing.

Accident Prone

So this past week, let's count.

On Wednesday, I fell down the staff stairs (big rock affair going to the bridge to get into the staff area) and bruised up my left shin and got mud all over my scrubs.

Thursday, I was putting a big box in the back seat of the van and managed to (I am not exaggerating) deck myself in the jaw and bit the inside of my lip.

Friday, I finally contracted the stomach virus everyone else has had and spent the night throwing up.

Saturday, I tripped over a trailer hitch behind the camp van in the dark, bruising my left shin further.

Then (!) I got my finger caught/pinched in the gas pumping thingy when someone (!) tried to "help" me pump gas into the camp van.

Bets on when I end up in the Emergency Room at this rate?

Oh, and this morning, for the record, I really hurt!

"My foot went numb"

So they brought in this child who said he had sprained his ankle.

I looked.

No swelling, bruising, loss of strength or any other indications of distress, so, twist at best.

Then the kid says, "I can't feel my toes."

Crap.

That is a significant indicator and I have protocols to follow. I thumped the kid's toes. He said he couldn't feel it.

So I reached in my drawer and grabbed an empty syringe to check sensation.

All heck broke loose.

"I am allergic to most of the stuff that goes in there!"

"There's nothing in here, I just need to see what you can feel."

"I don't like needles!"

"But you can't feel it. You just said so."

"I can feel now, I just couldn't a minute ago."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it comes and goes, and it's back now."

When I spoke to the scout master later he said he wished I had called him in to watch the episode. He said this kid is notorious for his injury stories and medical theatrics.

Either way, he walks fine now and it made my day.

Emotional Cocoons

There are many different kinds of intimacy. Most people think immediately of physical and/or see that as the best or most important kind. Those people are seriously missing the boat. So often I meet young christian couples who hold up this physical "purity" as a sign that they are being careful, guarding their hearts and yet when the break up comes it is the emotional intimacy created in those quiet moments of bared souls that find them just as if not more devastated than those that had a physical relationship. Those poor men and women don't know what hit them.

Emotional intimacy is a very serious and underestimated thing. It exists between parents and children, siblings, friends and couples. Obviously depending on the relationship it works differently and each kind of relationship has it's own brand. There are several brands of it which make it difficult to see as a problem or to always define correctly. Especially between men and women who are friends. Friendships between men and women are completely possible and reasonable, but we are meant to attract each other beyond friendship, so... A man and a woman might be friends and have romantic relationships outside that friendship but have become so emotionally intimate within the friendship that they have seriously endangered and entangled one of their hearts or more likely both.

It is very complicated sometimes to find the line between loving/caring for someone as "just friends" and cherishing someone as more. People can cross those lines all the time, and not even know really until they are too far to go back. It is comfortable, comforting, to be emotionally intimate. Our hearts are designed to be connected to others. The idea that there are no strings attached can be even more intoxicating (like the idea that you can have an open sexual relationship... which by the way is also a really bad idea!) but it is dangerous and almost and addictive narcotic of sorts. When it's gone you can even go through painful withdrawal.

Physical Intimacy without emotional intimacy is empty and a lie. A lie we tell ourselves. It is why casual sex is so meaningless and frankly heinous. Emotional intimacy without commitment and genuine intentions is oddly almost (if not more so) as empty because in the end the love and support is hollow and has no basis in reality. It will not stand as is under pressure or scrutiny. It either has to complete itself in a real commitment/connection or end to allow room for the new real commitments to others.

It is such a comfortable thing, though. Comforting to be wrapped in a cocoon of emotions, however artificial, that makes you feel safe. It is easy to spin that cocoon for someone else, with the best of intentions, even though in reality you cannot maintain it and never really meant to.

Caterpillars create cocoons to transform into butterflies. Spiders use cocoons to trap their prey and hold them while they suck out their life blood.

Yeah. Draw your own cocoosions.

Being an Adult

It is a difficult thing to define and catalog, when we become an adult. When is that moment that we really are an adult? What really is an adult? In some ways it is a legal age, but the cut off is not nearly the definite.

As a teacher of high school, I have a very rigid code about ages. In terms of friendships, relationships, romantic entanglements, all of it, age, maturity and adulthood are all factors that I weigh very carefully.

When I first started teaching, I was 23 and my students were all 17 and 18. I was clearly (in my mind) older, wiser and more mature than they were, but as I have gotten older, while I still see very clear lines, the lines are differently defined.

Camp created a weird scenario for me. In some ways there is no age up here. We are defined by our roles in camp. There are people that I consider friends that in the real world should be/could be students. Yet, our friendship here rarely is a mentor mentee thing, just an equal footing thing.

A lot of the time, I still see the age lines in my head, I mean I'm a teacher. In today's world it is very important that I see them. I've ingrained that necessity into my soul, but there are grey areas.

The people who are legal adults, but I still see as boys. Sometimes it is hard for me to accept that they really are adults. My father was the one who actually called me on that. I was talking about one staffer who is 23 and I called him a boy. Dad asked his age. I told him. Dad corrected me and said, "That is a man. He is not a boy and you would do well to remember that." I answered, "but he's not finished yet!" Dad said, "That may be true, but neither are you."

I don't think I was truly an adult until the day I got Nana. I was 28 at the time.

I was disappointed this week to find that someone I have been trying hard, very hard, to accept as an adult, really is not. That doesn't mean that they are not still my friend, not still very intelligent and/or not still a wonderful person, but they are not an adult. In this case their age doesn't matter, because it's wrong. They are still not yet a grown-up.

And like I said. I find myself more disappointed than I thought I would be, but oddly relieved as well.

Pig Tails!

It's Thursday! I like Thursdays. It's staff night off tonight. I only get every other staff night off this summer as I alternate with the other lady here in Med Lodge. This week she took Wednesday and I took Thursday and next week we'll switch. I think I even have a date for next Wednesday, but that's another story for later.



Anyway.



It's Staff Night Off tonight and we are taking the kids to this really neat restaurant that has this thing called the Belly Bomb. It's a Sunday with 20 scoops in it and if you eat it all you get this pink T-Shirt. I don't do the Belly Bomb and I treat too many of the kids in the morning who have to indulge, but this will be the first time I get to go watch the ice cream go in...



We were all so tired last week. I think we pushed ourselves too hard and only now are we starting to catch back up and get the rest we need. I slept seven hours last night. How decadent is that! So today, I am wearing my favorite scrubs. They have a little girl with pigtails all over them. So I wear pig tails too. I've been told by someone who just doesn't understand that I look "ridiculous," but everyone else says adorable. I like it so I don't really care.



Thursday is a good day for pig tails!



I also went shooting on Tuesday. Again, I am "Lovely and Lethal." I've been told I have very nice grouping. I shot 4 out of seven pigeons too with my shot gun. No bruise this year. I fell down some rock stairs trying to go check on an idiot staffer who shall remain nameless who slept in as a temper tantrum protest to reality. My shin still hurts, but it's better.



One staffer called me a Mac Truck on Tuesday, because he thought I wouldn't mind. It was funny to fix that misconception. Why a guy would ever think a woman wouldn't mind that is beyond me.



However, on the flip side I have been hugged so much this week my back is starting to get sore.



Nana is being passive aggressive I think. She isn't taking all her pills regularly or consistently. She decides when she opens the daily compartment that there are too many pills there and so she picks and chooses which ones she will take. We think she bases this concept on their shape and color. We are working on the problem.



Nana also told me that she loves the dogs more than me because they spend more time with her. Then she changed her mind when she realized I was her ride home from the nail salon. Gotta love Nana.



So today I have on Pigtails! Nothing can go wrong, right?

Gossip

Anyone who thinks girls are big gossips should go hang out at a boyscout camp for the summer.

It's Sunday and I am already tired. People are cranky and punchy and I should stop listening to people when they talk and/or giving comfort and advice because then I get lectured by someone else about what I did or did not say to people I may or may not have talked to about things I may or may not know anything about and most likely don't care anyway.

This is part of that whole Emotional Lightning Rod thing my father told me about. It's because I'm a 6'3" red head. I just know it.

Oh, and if one more person tells me to "get smarter" they may never be able to have children!

One Down, Six to Go!

So we have finished Camp Week One and this afternoon begin Week Two. One Down, Six To Go. Week One Highlights include,

The kid who threw up over three scout masters during the Sunday Night Campfire. Seriously, priceless.

The kid with (deep breath) autism, OCD and ADHD who had a severe phobia of bugs and wanted to sit in my clinic and eat chocolate because his therapist told him it made you feel like you were falling in love. I made the mistake of trying to show him that bug bites were no big deal. I pinched him, softly. He began to cry and announced he had sensitive skin. I confessed everything to his mother. She sheepishly admitted she had tried the same thing with the same results. Then another director also admitted he had tried it too. No wonder this kid is phobic. People keep pinching him! He made it through the week, though. His mom gave me a beautiful pot full of chocolate as a thank-you. How sweet!

The scout leader who was a medical student who thought everything was typhoid and leprosy. OK, not really, but seriously, it was funny how often he brought kids to me because he was so concerned. One of his kids though was a serious Home Sick Hypochondriac PITA! He wouldn't do what I told him to, his parents wouldn't come get him (not that I blame them) and he kept sneaking away from his camp site to come see me, he would over heat on the way and be vomiting by the time he got to me. On the last day I simply, firmly, not un-gently threw him out. Then I found said scout leader and pointed out that the kid needed a leash if he could not stay put.

Eight scout leaders signed up to take First Aid and CPR with me. Then they changed their mind because they said we changed the schedule (we did not) and that the class was too long, and that they didn't know anyway. So I ate the $40 for their cards. Oh well.

We got 100 on our inspection. This is a great thing.

Nana announced to me on Saturday that she might love the dogs more than me because she sees them more. Then she changed her mind back and and forth three times before deciding she loved me best.

I spent a very peaceful and delightful Saturday evening with three very sweet men, trying desperately to forget we had ever even heard of camp. I packed a pick-nick dinner and we went to some really pretty places to just chill out. It was nice. Good music too.

My therapist and I had a long talk about real feelings and the artificial and letting ourselves buy into the artificial because it feels good, even though it is not a good idea. Like a drug, really. I hate it by the way, when that man is that kind of right. I have some important realities and decisions to make about some things. I imagine I am strong enough to do what I have to do, and I know in the end it's what is best and what I will do, but it is still hard. It is so easy to passively accept something that feels good and safe, even though in the end it is not real. One way or another, though, this thing is finite and I will overcome it.

Actually I had several long talks with several delightful people this week. I've missed my guys and I am enjoying reconnecting. The knock on my door late at night, "Sandy, can we talk?" This is where I feel the most needed and wanted. They are all so serious, they take themselves so seriously. Some of them have very real issues in their lives. I'd like to just take some of them into my arms and lovingly smother away all the hurts. Some of them want so desperately to be someone or something they are not rather than being happy with the wonderful things they are. Why guys feel the need to be bad-a**'s is beyond me, and I don't know who they think they are fooling... Not me anyway. I know the sweet, good young they are. It's hard not to laugh out loud at them about it. But then, they come to me to talk and all of that falls away.

It's been a long week, and I am a bit tired, but it's been a good one and I'm ready for the next wave.-

Boundries

Introspecting again. I know. Sorry.

Boundaries are a strange set of things. In some ways mine are very open and even weak and then n others they are very small and very strong. I find myself trying to be clear on which ones need to be changed and how and why.

Camp is a place that really pushes my envelope on that. The relationships here are so intense and so, for lack of a better term, artificial. There is no other environment in the real world that would cause people to work, live and lean on each other this way. It creates security where there really is none and conversely creates conflict where there is none either.

Some days I am very confused and angry and hopeful all at the same time. I have a sick feeling that something will have to break eventually.

Will it be a boundary, or me?

Angry

Perspective is a funny thing. It makes me feel old. I remember when everything was a burning issue that had to be taken care of right this minute and my feelings were paramount. I remember it like it was yesterday, that time, I mean, because it was, yesterday...

Not really, but I do remember. This week (and it's only Tuesday) has thrown a lot of things at us here at camp. More specifically poor planning on a few individuals' part has created some real bottle neck issues and as usual the staff ends up taking one for the team. We have to eat our meals on fly outside, and the kitchen keeps trying to come up with a better solution to the problem. Some people find the constant change as frustrating as the situation itself.

Frustration and Anger is when yelling happens. Lots of nasty things get said. People gather around to watch.

Then there is the cool down.

The thing is, nothing is really accomplished in the yelling and for the most part if people care about each other (those that are yelling at each other I mean) they don't really feel better after saying awful things to each other, they even, often, feel worse. Then there is the whole "who apologizes to whom" thing and all that jazz.

These young men are learning about real life, the real world and being leaders in a place that is not exactly real, normal or logical. Many of them want to be able to have control and they yell when they get frustrated because they think that shows their leadership and take charge-dness and all those other things that ambitious young men hope to be.

Me, as the older, wiser (I told you this is not a normal place, because no other place am I any kind of site of wisdom) "big sister" type, just sits and waits.

The funny part is I am a screamer so to speak, and I came from a family of screamers and in my classroom I can get quite noisy, but the older I get the more I know that the yelling accomplishes little and most often makes it worse (for yourself as much as the guilty party).

This morning my prayer is that Angry gets quieter.

Safe

What is it to feel safe? I've been thinking about that a lot lately. First there are so many different kinds of safe. There is the physical safe, emotional safe, spiritually safe, romantically safe, and while I don't know how to explain there are other safe's as well.

There are a lot of times when I don't feel safe. I mostly feel physically safe, though occasionally I get a bit spooked, but it is very hard for me to feel emotionally safe. When people are open to me and love on me (as we say in the south) rather than simply feeling the comfort of that affection I find myself fighting this odd overwhelming panic, and what should make me feel very safe (and in many ways does) also makes me feel incredibly out of control. It's kinda weird, and frightening, ya know?

Speaking of out of control. Camp started officially yesterday. YIKES! We had troops show up with way more kids than we expected, lots of very home sick kids, and there are snakes everywhere.

The real interesting thing to me was the home sick kids. We did a skit for our opening campfire (I say we in the general sense, I didn't plan this and had not had anything to do with it) involving a new campers experiences at camp. The final scene was the bus leaving without him. Do you know what showing real new campers that kind of "joke" on the first night of camp does? Yeah. You got it! One dear angel panicked so completely he yacked on the three scout masters in front of him. (Yes, it was a bit funny) Another scout went hysterical in my office for fear the same thing would happen to him.

We have the highest numbers we have ever had. There are people everywhere. One of the food service people shorted the dining hall on four cases of waffles, so the kitchen staff was up making french toast at the speed of light this morning.

Stress is running very high with the staff. I've been giving out water, chocolate hugs and a strong shoulder all morning. Doing that feels safe. Why does receiving that feel scary?