The second summer that Stuart and I worked together we were not bro/sis counselors. We were actually on opposite teams as he had been moved to the Blue team. This meant war of course! 😉 I went into the summer still dating the “eharmony guy” as he will probably forever be known. 😉 I had finished up my teaching contract at PCA and moved all of my junk worldly possessions back to NM where my parents now lived. I didn’t know what I was going to do exactly but I did know that camp was where I was supposed to be at that time. Stuart came back to camp ready for his second summer of counseling. Second summers are the best because you know at least in part what to expect and you can really learn to just focus on your campers and do your best to help them along. Stuart had a great summer even though he had a LOT of jr. high cabins. He won the coveted “spark plug” award that year. And just in case you are wondering, NO, I never did win it! 🙂 I’m not bitter about that though, to me it seemed like more of a popularity contest than anything, but I am proud of Stu for winning it!! 🙂 He’ll ALWAYS be more popular than me anyhow. 😉
Since we weren’t bro/sis that summer we saw quite a bit less of each other than the summer before, but we did have several memorable conversations. First, he found out that I was dating someone and absolutely REFUSED to leave it alone till he found out all about it! Guys at camp can be the biggest busy bodies, I tell ya! He kept pulling out the old, “But I’m your brother, you should tell me.” line and so finally I did, but I warned him upon pain of death that he was not to talk to ANYONE about it. He promised and as far as I know he didn’t blab. 😉 He did tease me about dating an “axe murderer” and the like though. Don’t know why people can’t figure that you can meat nice people online as well as creeps, but anyway….. Stu told me about this “gal” that he was occasionally writing to and how it irritated him that a friend of his asked her to artist series. 😀 Ha ha ha!! At that point they were still just in the “writing” stage of things, but he did a good job of staying focused and didn’t get mixed up in those “camp romances” that are so popular. I seem to remember some kind of “pact” between 3 or so of the guys to “not like” girls at camp that year…. I don’t really have to tell you how that went! Ha ha ha ha!!!
About half way through the summer I took a weekend trip to Chicago to spend some time with the “eharmony guy.” The trip had been planned before summer started, so I couldn’t really “get out of it” even though I was REALLY REALLY REALLY not looking forward to going. By that time I did know that this guy was not “the one” and I knew I had to tell him once and for all. And lest you think I just showed up and dropped the bomb on him, I didn’t. I had already given him fair warning, but he still wanted to see me. So I went for his bro’s wedding, talk about awkward! Ugh! Some people tend to think that if you’re the one doing the “breaking up” that it’s no big deal to you and it doesn’t bother you as much as the one being “dumped.” I would like to officially disagree with that for the record! I didn’t date a lot, but each time I did date someone seriously, I was the one doing the “dumping” and I hated it! This time wasn’t any exception. It went well, and I don’t think there were bitter feelings on either side, but I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was the right thing to do even though it was uncomfortable. I’ll also just tell you that I greatly dislike dating. I mean, I like it now, cause I get to date the man of my dreams, but I grew to really hate the process and the labels and all that junk that goes with it. So I started to develop my own “system” which will come to play an important role in “our story” pretty soon!
So I think that besides Steve Stodola the only other person who really knew why I was going to Chicago for the weekend was Stuart. Because of the way things went that weekend, I caught a stand by flight and was able to get back to camp on Sunday night rather than Monday. Since he knew when I was supposed to be back Stuart was surprised when I walked into the dining hall to write my letter to the family who supported me at camp. (Cant remember what we called those things???) He was in there writing his, and so we chatted for a few min. I told him, briefly, what happened, and he just kind of looked at me weird. I don’t really blame him because I was laughing. Seems pretty heartless and I’m sure that’s what he was thinking, but I told him, “There are times in life where your choices are to either laugh or cry, and I don’t like crying!” Secretly, I’m sure, he was glad that I was done with the axe-murderer-psycho-eharmony-guy! 🙂
He didn’t know just how happy he was but he’d soon find out!