so i was at camp for three days last week, and honestly, i loved it. the staff people there really made me feel accepted. first of all, all the teachers were my seventh grade teachers, so i had already known them pretty well. then all of the counselors with me were either my age or a year younger, so i knew most of them. the kids my age didn't really make me feel welcome until the last night though. everyone thinks i'm so shy and that i don't want anything to do with anyone, but that is so far from true. i just want to be accepted.
eating wise i did really well. i ate little portions at every meal and became a vegan for the three days so that i had more of an excuse not to eat. but then i ruined it when i went to chicago this weekend...
but anyway, the staff people were really nice. most of them work at camps with special needs kids, blind kids, deaf kids, etc. and i think they all really understand people. they can read people really well. i've realized that over the last two years. there's this one guy ben who's probably in his early thirties tops and he was my favorite. i only had a class with him twice, but once at lunch i was sitting at a table and he poked my shoulder and walked away. it was so stupid, but it made me feel welcome and like i actually had people there that cared about me.
the last day, after i did the panther pole (and got to the very top for the first time!) i participated in option time. my tribe has never been required to do it because we're always taking a class at the time, but i was able to do it this time. i was with claudia and we didn't want to do anything active. the only option was social and emotional something or other. well, i was more than uncomfortable with that class. we got a worksheet that had many different words on it and we had to check off the ones that we thought were us. then there were two questions at the bottom: one asking what we could change about ourselves, and one asking what we liked about ourselves. well, i honestly could not do the worksheet. i didn't want to think about that stuff at the time. it makes me sad and i didn't want these seventh graders to know my business. they're too young to know about my unhappiness.
the teacher i talked about earlier asked me if i was okay every night. every. single. night. which she was right to do, because i wasn't okay, but i wasn't going to admit that. she seriously knows me too well that it's scary sometimes. there was this girl avery who was very homesick at camp. she was in my cabin, and the teacher told her that i would be willing to help her. she kept saying great things about me according to avery and i just thought that was so nice. i almost cried because she was saying nice things. i don't get that kind of stuff often because everyone hates me. i'm so glad this teacher doesn't hate me though. she just knows me too well, which scares the shit out of me.
i did cry myself to sleep both nights at camp though. the first one was because of alex. it had been a year and a day and i don't know, i had cried myself to sleep because of it last year too. the second night was because these two girls were in the same bed with a flashlight because they were scared. i used to have a friend like that. it made me miss abby even more than usual.