The Beginning of the End

After the five weeks of summer camp were over, us international staff stayed on an extra week (I don't exactly know why to be honest but I'm really glad we did) to clear up and do service projects around camp. This meant we had evenings off and were all in one cabin together again! As much as I was looking forward to this week, it meant that we'd be saying goodbye to the American staff which I was not looking forward to one bit.

After we said goodbye to our last group of campers, we did our usual round of cleaning the camp, then a bit of this:

and then had our last staff meeting together. During our final week, Megan had asked us to all anonymously give her a song that we related to this summer which she then compiled into a Camp DeWolfe Staff CD. Because it was all done anonymously, on the way to our staff meal together (Applebee's!) we had a good time listening to the CD and guessing which song belonged to who. Not going to lie, there are three songs on there I repeatedly skip over *cough* Elton John *cough*, but every time I press the skip button I think of the person whose song it is and it makes me smile. 

The next morning Katelyn and Tyrell left really early to drive to catch their flights, and this goodbye was awful and I was really trying not to cry but ended up doing so anyway and we were all in our pajamas at 7am teary-eyed which basically made me feel like a giant ball of sad. After they had left we went back to bed so when I woke up again it felt strange like it almost didn't happen. But it had. Anyway, later that day those of us who hadn't left went to Kevin Hill's house (going to expose him now as the guy who chose Elton's 'Written in the Stars' for the CD, what a guy) for a pool party! Aside from accidentally letting his dog loose around the neighborhood the moment I arrived, it was a pretty good time. That evening we headed to Port Jefferson, which is a cool town to visit and watched the sunset at the harbor, putting off saying more goodbyes. We hugged multiple times before it was time to separate ways; Zorn to catch his train, Hill back to his home, us internationals and Karen back to camp, Yorel and Corey to NYC and Dan stayed in Port Jeff cos it's his hometown. If ever there was a time to seriously use the phrase 'peak times', this is it. /\

 

I'm not sure if it would have been better for me to say goodbye to everyone at once to get it over with or if it was good saying goodbye to people at different stages the way I did. Right up until I watched Hannah leave Penn Station there had always been other people staying with me and sharing in the goodbye which I think made it easier for me along the way. 

To be honest, the more experience I have with goodbyes, the more I dislike them. But I'm pretty sure I'll see these guys again sometime. 

Bethan