So our girl gets home today after being away working at camp for the last four weeks. I cannot wait to see her! I’m really looking forward to hearing all of her stories about how the past month has gone.
It’s a camp that we have taken her to each and every summer for the past decade or so now. I can no longer go there unfortunately because it’s built on a hill. It might likely be the most inaccessible camp on the planet 🙃. But we still do love it and are thrilled that it’s found a place in Cate’s heart.
Perhaps my favourite part of the camp is the lake. I so love swimming in lake water. There’s truly nothing else like it in my opinion. I would go each and every afternoon from the moment the swimming area opened until almost the time we were kicked out by the lifeguards. During the past few years while my body was giving out, some of my friends and the camp staff would haul me down to the water and literally throw me in, and I would simply float around and take in the serenity of it all.
But now that I am in this wheelchair I seem to no longer have a way to get in and out of the water. And though I didn’t expect this, I believe swimming around in a lake might just be the something that’s amongst the hardest for me not to be able to participate in; especially in the summer. I see pictures of people on Facebook who were swimming and fishing and water skiing on lakes and my response is both happiness for them and jealousy for me. (It’s rare for me to wanna punch them in the face:)
I took being able to do that for granted. Even though I loved every minute of being in a lake, I really didn’t fully value how much of a privilege it was.
So this summer, while I am very much enjoying sitting on my deck, eating meals outside, listening to the birds sing and watching the wind blow through the trees, I’m really missing some of the water fun that I now realize was so important to me. It sucks.
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Holding gratitude and longing in tension is a pain in the derrière.
But at least I can live vicariously through my girl’s camp stories once I see her later today. I assume many of them will involve the lake.
And for that I am honestly truly grateful.