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My Heart Returned: The Camp Pickup Hug I Waited All Summer For
A 15-year-old's fifth summer at sleepaway camp ends with a pickup hug that dissolves every tantrum, meltdown, and teenage eye-roll. The writer's friend was right about having your heart walk around outside your body. She finally got hers back.
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When I became pregnant for the first time over 15 years ago, a friend offered me words I never forgot: "Having children is like having your heart walking around outside your body." His words were sweet. I didn't fully understand them just yet.
My son was born and those words came to life. As a stay-at-home mother, though, he was not yet venturing beyond my sight. I knew he was safe in real time. We had another baby a few years later. As both of my boys grew, these words returned to me often.
My now-15-year-old has been going to sleepaway camp for five summers. At drop-off I say goodbye with a hug and hang onto that feeling of having him in my arms until we are together again. My husband and I descend the hill in our car, a piece of myself left behind in the mountains. For four weeks I move through life wondering what he is doing, whether he is brushing his teeth and eating his veggies, and whether he is happy being many miles from home. Everywhere I go, thoughts of him follow. A reminder that I am not whole without him.
From his first summer – the dining hall burned to the ground on day three, making national news and igniting a motherly anxiety I had never known – all the way to this summer when I had no doubt he would love every moment, saying goodbye has become easier with time.
I no longer worry if he is happy or if he knows how to pull the fitted sheet over the corners of his bed. He is more mature now. Camp has become his favorite place on Earth. Drop-off day has transformed. Pickup day has not. It is still just as magical as ever.
Yesterday my husband and I arrived at the pavilion where my son's trunk was loaded into our car. We drove up the hill towards the cabins. The feeling that hits me every summer on pickup day returned. I fought the happy tears welling in my eyes. No teenager wants to introduce his friends to his crying mother. I played it cool for him. Inside I was glowing.