It’s the middle of the summer and for the life of me I cannot get the smell of sunscreen off my skin. I could have worst smells that follow me around on a daily basis, so I guess I should count myself lucky. To give you a better idea of why I am a walking around smelling like a bottle of sunscreen, I’ve been working as a lifeguard for a girls camp this summer.
This is my first year at summer camp, and from my rainy English summer’s life here is absolute bliss. I was pretty nervous to take the jump to head over to America for a summer as I didn’t have any friends who were going anywhere near my camp. But like everyone told me, your camp friends will become your closest comrades. I won’t try to tell you why or how you can become so close to these people just after a week or so, it just happens. Take my word and the word of everyone else. I know that if I need someone to sneak into the kitchen with me to grab a cookie dough ball at 11pm, I have people. Of course, I miss my family and friends back home, but skype and facebook make home seem less far away. So spending my days down by the lake getting my tan lines on has been so far an amazing experience.
But my name tag doesn’t just show lifeguard as my main role, as I am also a cabin counselor for a group of crazy, hilarious, high energy 9/10 year old girls. These girls stay at camp for 4 weeks at a time, so I am their role model, sister, mother, and friend all wrapped into one. Again, a pretty scary role to take on for a 19 year old, but as The Beatles sang, “I get by with a little help from my friends”. My co-counselor is my rock, just like I’m hers. We share the ups and downs of cabin life with style and flare. Without Molly I’d be covered in glitter, have 5 pigtails coming out my head, different nail polish on each finger and toe, and a wardrobe that clashes so bad, it just maybe works. Instead it’s Molly who looks like this, and I love her for it.