Being Genuine

I love my job.  I love that I get paid to think creatively and critically, paid to work through things with people who are wise and loving and willing to push me to think deeper.  I’ve been in the office this week, which might seem dull and boring, but when you get to work with brilliant minds it’s so much fun; when you are all working together to plan and be prepared for the summer, the energy is contagious.  Magic is happening. 

Part of what I’ve been thinking about lately is: what is camp culture?  What type of community do I want to be a part of this summer?  What is it that I want to embody, for myself and for the new counselors who will be arriving at camp here in about a week?  This is what I came up with:

Being Genuine, A Manifesto:

What does being genuine look like? The genuine part is living open and honest and vulnerably.  It’s living into our contracts; knowing our contracts and sharing our contracts.  Genuine is loving the good in the suck, finding joy-filled moments in the midst of the storm, and acknowledging there is hard in the good times, too.  Genuine is owning our stories, it’s loving those stories and knowing that we are more than the sum of our stories.  Genuine is how we live 24/7 with people who challenge us, with kids who cuss us out and do the opposite of what we ask; kids who push our buttons just to watch how we react.  Genuine means letting ourselves be supported; it means asking for help, and letting others see that we are imperfect, too.  This is genuine.

We are all beautiful, broken people.  I can hate that, or I can love that; I choose to believe that.  Your story is not my story; I still feel those emotions.  I hear fear, I see lost and unwanted and confused written all over your face.  I feel my tears on your skin, or maybe they’re your tears on my skin.  Being genuine is letting this moment be.  Uncomfortable, awkward, whole-hearted, real.  Genuine is not embracing the suck, but embracing all of this, and seeing it as still beautiful.  It’s not survival mode of moment to moment, it’s looking up at the sun and smiling.  It’s looking up at the rain and smiling.  It’s looking into your eyes, looking into a mirror and smiling.  And not because we are beautiful and perfect, or because we are broken and pitiful, but because in our quest to do more, be more, to love harder, we are already there.  

We can invent ourselves and reinvent ourselves, and camp is a great place to do that, as long as the pieces you leave behind are the pieces you don’t need anymore.  Being genuine is letting these go.  Being genuine is walking bravely and with open arms into the unknown.  Being genuine is terrifying, being genuine invites change, being genuine means being open to whatever happens because no matter what happens, there is good – if only we are willing to, wanting to acknowledge its presence. 

Genuine is getting comfortable being uncomfortable.  It’s living openly- letting people see our strengths and our weaknesses; it’s living honestly- accepting that we are imperfect; it’s living vulnerably- seeing past walls and being seen without walls.  Genuine is loving with reckless abandon.  Genuine is a daily re-commitment.  Genuine is a choice.  Genuine is my choice.  Genuine. I hope you join me.  

Transitions

It has been a long winter here in the mountains.  I thought last weekend when it snowed two feet was the last of the snow, but we got dumped on again a few days ago, and even though it is now May, spring is just beginning to show up here.  I’m learning to be ok with that.  First, because I did move to the mountains for the winter, and second, because I’m slowly figuring out that life’s timing isn’t my own, and that’s ok.  Sometimes I’m ready for transition and sometimes I’m not, and regardless of how I’m feeling most days, life keeps moving on.  Ready or not, here it comes. 

I have been out here in Colorado for eight months now, and most of that time has been winter.  It snowed for the first time in mid-October and there’s still snow on the ground.  It has been a long season (in more ways than one), and now I’m getting ready to pack up my stuff and move back to Ohio for the summer.  I’m going to miss these mountains, but I’m really excited to begin this next adventure.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though.  Good-bye always happens before a new wave of hellos, and to be honest, I normally run away from good-byes.  They’re so hard.  Especially when I probably won’t “see you later.”   Good-bye to family and friends I know I am leaving for just a season, I’m better at that.  Walking away knowing I (more than likely) will never see you again, and even if I do, it won’t be the same; that breaks my heart.  I’m trying to process.  Trying to be ok feeling my feelings.  It’s what we tell our students:  It’s ok to be not ok.  Feel what you’re feeling.  Don’t be afraid to let it out.  It’s a lot easier to say then it is to do, however, and I’m not great at emotions.  Most of the time, I’m fine (feelings inside, not expressed).  Most of the time, I like to pretend I don’t need the people around me, because that would be admitting I don’t have it all together and I’m not super woman, and it makes good-bye so much harder when you actually care about and for the people you are leaving.  Maybe that’s why I try to keep the world at arms’ length so much.  Because I want to be always ready to leave and take all of myself with me when I go, not leaving my heart in the arms of others. 

I don’t think good-bye ever gets easier.  I don’t think I want it to.  It’s hard, and it breaks my heart, but I’ve lived so many years a shut book, so afraid of people leaving I didn’t let anyone in.  And I was miserable.  It has only been recently, these last few years, that I have been able to let myself be truly loved by those around me.  It makes good-bye so much harder, but it makes living so much more joyful.  I have to keep believing that that matters. 

In less than I week, I get to say good-bye to my family out here in the mountains, and set off to my family back in Ohio.  I want to take this moment to celebrate good-bye.  To be not ok, to feel what I’m feeling, to let it out, because I’m alive and I can feel these things, and I have people to feel them about. 

So here it is: Roommate, you are my everything, my rock, and my cloud.  Thank you for sharing all of this crazy roller coaster ride with me.  I don’t know who I would be without you.  You make me a better person and I’m going to miss your constant companionship.  Housemates, you have taught me so much, and not just about how to live with lots of personalities in the frathouse.  Your love inspires me daily.  Thank you for endless kitchen parties; for all the times I’ve laughed till I cried.  My Ranch family, I hardly have words.  They say you get to pick your friends, but not your family.  I’m happy that you are both.  You are the reason I’m smiling when there is nothing to smile about.  Anna, you are so special.  I’m going to miss our time hanging out together, doing nothing, talking about all the little things.  You have saved me out here, in more ways than I can count; long talks in the car and spontaneous road trips to name a few.  To the mountains, the snow, the windy roads that get me places I never thought I’d be, today I celebrate; life has taken me places better than even my wildest imaginations. 

That is not to say that there have not been bumps along the road, or long days full of tears.  There has been heartache and heartbreak, so many stories shared over boxes of Kleenex, and raw emotions brought to the surface, scary feelings we don’t always know how to deal with.  There has been bumps in the road, literal and figurative, and there is still more to celebrate, more life to live.  No, I haven’t started packing.  No, I don’t know when I’ll be back in Cincinnati.  My body still aches from hiking and working 30 hour shifts.  I’ve lost count of the times I’ve cried in the past week.  I can’t do everything I want to; can’t be in two perfect worlds at the same time; I’m gonna have to learn that this love will never be convenient.  (That song came on just as I was typing it, and it fit.  Shameless plug, if you’re in Cincy May 7, go see The Front Bottoms at Bogarts.) 

Loving life, and whatever its version of perfect is, will never be easy, or convenient, and it more often than not will not be what I am planning for.  But if I let it, it can be better.  It has been.  I like to make lists and plans, but I’m learning to trust in whatever the universe has in store.  Learning that just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s bad (and oftentimes it’s really good).  And so, good-bye is hard right now, because there’s so much I’m taking away and so much of myself I’m leaving in the mountains with my friends.  This adventure has not been what I expected, and for that I am extremely grateful. 

And whether I’m ready or not, the time has come to move on.  More days of tears are in store, more days of unconditional love, more days of hugs and laughter and surprises.  And now I prepare to leave this place I’ve grown to love more than I ever imagined.  I might be back.  I might not.  Sometime I’m ok with that, and sometimes I’m not.  Regardless, in a few days I get to say good-bye to life out here; the time will come for me to embrace my friends for the last time, and with those same open arms, I will continue to walk forward, to embrace whatever it is that is next.