This letter isn't for this audience. This letter is for me to my kid. You are welcome to read and judge accordingly, but I want this preserved on the blockchain while this experience is fresh in my head.
Dear Baby1,
I want you to know I'm excessively proud of you. I love being your dad more than anything else in this world. When you were born I looked at your mom who has been my best friend for more than half my life and said "Move over buddy, there's a new sheriff in town." I've never been more excited in my life than the first second I saw you. I've never been prouder of anything than being Dad for you and your sister. I'm grateful every day for this experience.
We chose to send you to summer camp together as a family. I know you were incredibly excited for this opportunity. I knew it would be hard. I remember when I went that I balled my eyes out. I told my mom that I was too big for a teddy bear and that I didn't need it. I called home two days into camp unconsolably balling saying that I wanted to go home and that I needed my bear. My mom drove up to bring that to me and I tried to convince her to bring me home. Somehow she summoned the will to leave me there and it's one of the best things that she could have done for my personal development.
Today when I visted you at camp you were absolutely balling and inconsolable that you wanted to go home. The visit started great, but when we got close to leaving you made it extremely clear that you wanted to go home right then. You were sharing that you had already had the experience that you needed to have there and that you were insistent that you could get that same experience at home. You told me in no uncertain terms that we needed to go home with you in the car with us.
That's not what I chose. Mom looked you in the eyes and said today we're just visitors. I told you that staying was the only option.
It's hard to encompass how hard that decision was for me. For whatever reason it was triggering my own personal experience when my mother had a stroke with late stage cancer. The doctors asked if we should operate and I told them no. It was the single worst day of my life. This experience for whatever reason was pulling at those memories with some similiar feelings of making a highly significant decision for another person with many different possible outcomes.
That's just to say that I didn't make the decision lightly. What you were clear about was just how hard the experience was, and that you could get that same experience at home. What I didn't have words to say at the time is that the very part of this that's hard, mainly the homesickness, is exactly what you can't get while at home. This is an experience that tests our own abilities and teaches us not only about our limits but also our capabilities.
You said it was too hard to do this far away from home. It felt like a safe and wonderful place that you loved, but it was hard to be away. You were giving up on yourself that you couldn't make it the rest of the way there. Forgive me for this one, but I know you better than that. I wasn't going to let you make a decision at a moment of weakness that you'd regret later. I choose to have you stay.
A secondary thing that made this so hard for me was the fact that I truly believe everyone should have liberty to make decisions for themselves, but in this case I think your judgement was compromised at the time, and I acted as a parent to protect the experiences that I know would help guide you and form you for the rest of your life. I love you kiddo, and I couldn't let you or me take that away from you.
Make no mistake I've been having a really hard time while you're away. You're my best friend and it hurts every day that you aren't home. My central anxiety in life is not having my kids with me in the house. This is hard for me too, but I trust that this is the exact experience that can help us both grow. I trust you'll come around to that. If my heart sensors are right you already did.
I'll add from personal experience that I call upon what I learned at camp all the time. I'm confidant when I'm in front of people, I know my body can do hard work, I know how to make friends, and I trust that I can create a community from a group of strangers. I learned these things at camp. I also grew strong on the inside.
During camp we climbed mountains, we sailed the oceans, we rowed our kayaks and canoes down rivers, and we tested our very limits. I know I can do hard things because I've done hard things and it started when I was eight years old. You too will lean on these experiences for the rest of your life and the strength that you gleam from them will get your through hard times.
When I got my PhD it was the hardest ongoing experience I'd lived through. I spent 8 months working 16hours every day only giving myself every other Sunday afternoon/evening off. My advisor was telling me I wasn't going to graduate on time, work was telling me I had to make it or the job offer wouldn't be there, and my wife was telling me we had to get her out of the State of Texas. I would work, go to the next hood over, cry a little bit, and get back to work. The will to get back to work even though it was hard was built at camp.
When my mother was dying of brain cancer I was able to push through that time because of the inner strength that I had molded and formed at camp.
When I fought to rebuild my life after many years of hard living it was built on the self-esteem and force of will I learned at camp.
Somewhat ironically, the thing that gives me the strength to know that you should be at camp even when you don't want to and that gives me the will to tow the line was my camp experience.
So, having been on the other side of this experience and having used it for every hard piece of time in my life let me assure you I'm not going to let us lose this opportunity for you during a moment of weakness. I believe in you and know that you'll find a way. You might not have it in you right this second, but you'll learn it and do it. Then you'll have it. That's how it works.
This decision wasn't easy at all for me even though I'm feeling better about it. I've been crying off and on for the many hours of driving back home. Here's the thing though. One day I was asking my brother about some tough decions that lay in front of me. He gave me some advice that I still use to this day. "Well, Bruddah, when faced with some tough life choices the thing that's harder to do is often the right one." It would have been a lot easier on all of us to just get you in this car and bring you home, but easy decisions doesn't build character, will, strength, or awesomeness. You deserve and will need all of those things. I trust this experience will help you earn those character traits.
So look baby1. I love you. I'm immensely proud of you for doing this thing. I know it's hard and I know just how hard this part is for you. I also know that especially because even though you're struggling that you're growing and doing great. I'm forever proud of you. Forever grateful to be your dad, and I hope and trust that you'll know that I'm just trying to do my best for you. Here's hoping mom and I are right and this whole thing is something positive that you'll lean on for your whole life.
With all my heart kiddo,
I love you,
Dad
PS it doesn't escape me how lucky we are to even be able to have this concern. I know it's a first world problem to be dealing with a homesick camper when many kids aren't even able to eat. I'm doing my best there too through the Minnow Support Group and spreading the Steem platform which I believe is the strongest force in the world I've encountered for an abundance mindset in the greater world community. Here's to all of us being so fortunate to have a homesick camper.