Summer Living

I wish I could adequately sum up this summer in a few words, but at this time, the hundreds of memories and the faces and the perfection of the summer are all so present, that I can't even begin to condense my feelings into those few words.

Perfect afternoons in Knoxville

I had fun. I got to lose myself in the chill nature of WOW (the urban mission camp I worked at.) I had time to think about everything. I had time to change. I had time to love. I had time to make friends, real friends.I had time to be me.

I think this summer was also great preparation for college. I say that because I learned how to live with and get along with all kinds of people. It can be tough sometimes to spend every waking moment with people, but I think I am much better prepared to do so now.

At the beginning of the summer, I guess we all felt frantic and a little worried that we would not get to spend enough time with each other to make sufficient memories. This was sort of a problem when we started staying up until 2 in the morning several mornings in a row. We had lots of card games to play, lots of jam sessions to have, and lots of heart to hearts to have! These late nights didn't prove to be much of a problem on weeks where we only had to staff a single week in a row and then go home...but when we finally realized that this would kill us for multiple weeks in a row, we started to change the way we did things. We actually grew closer and happier and much more energetic when we got to sleep. Such a crazy concept.

We learned how to separate ourselves and take the time to get lost in a book instead of always having to be around everyone. It was nice to know that we could take alone time. When we got back to hanging out after taking a nap or whatever, everyone seemed so much more pleasant. We set ourselves a bedtime, so every minute we were with each other, really counted.

The Wonderful WOW Staff

Now I know I just said I learned how to find my space in the midst of living with people, but I know I'll want to quickly get to know people in college, and I'll probably stress over getting to spend enough time with everyone anyways. I hope that I can get all of my socializing done by 12 AM. I doubt this will be the case, but I know I will only last so long without sleep. I can only hope that I can get into a schedule that includes sleep by the time classes start.