It was the first few days of the summer, and the weather was beautiful. I was going into 6th grade, getting ready for middle school. I was happy because it was summertime. The school year was over. I did not have to deal with the weight of homework anymore, but most importantly I was starting to get ready for summer camp. I had never been away from home for more than a few days with the exception of vacation and never alone making all my own decisions for this long. This camp, however, was a few hours away and was over 10 days long. Normally, I would be excited about a new experience, but I was nervous. What if I don’t make friends or nobody likes me? What if I hate being there or get sick? As all this was going through my head, I was also getting ready for my family’s annual Fourth of July party. I went every year, and this time seemed no different. I was excited to go. After gathering a few essentials I knew I would need for camp, I wanted to print out my packing list to get the rest of the stuff. So I went to my mom who was working on her laptop. I asked her to pull up the packing list, but she pulled up the camp schedule by accident instead. After looking at, it she told me something unpleasant. She told me that for camp I leave on the second of July instead of the sixth like we originally thought. At first, I did not think about it, but then I realized something. I realized I would not be around to go to the party if I was going to camp before the Fourth of July . After a few minutes trying to quickly figure out what to do, I went to my room to think about my predicament. I could either go to the party because I wanted to, or I could go to a camp I had never been to and was not entirely sure I would even like. I decided to give it some time and think about it for a few days.

Over the next few days, I woke up and looked at the packing list for camp, but did not buy anything yet nor had I begun to start packing up clothes to go away. My bag still gathered dust in my closet, my sleeping bag freshly washed but not stuffed in the bag. I did not know what to do about going to camp or the party. I wanted to go to camp and experience something new, but at the same time I was afraid of doing something new and going somewhere I had never been. I knew that maybe one or two of my friends would be there, but at the same time tons of people I had never met before. Part of me wanted to be more like an adult and be on my own making my own decisions, but part of me did not want to be away from my family that long. I was stuck with what seemed to be a simple decision for me, yet I was having a very hard time deciding.

One hot day at the end of June, I was with my friends just hanging out and not really doing anything important. It was still quite early in the summer, so we all had nothing to do because camps and some sports did not start for a couple more weeks. We all started talking about what we were doing over the summer. I had explained what my issue was and they all told me the same thing. They said I could only go to summer camp this summer once and had the rest of the summer to be with them and see my family. With that in mind, I went to sleep later knowing what I was going to do. When July 2nd rolled around, I packed my bag into our car, put my boots on and was ready to go to camp. While I was there, I made friends that I hung out with and kept in touch with over the course of the summer and had lots of fun doing it. After camp, I had only one thought; I could not wait to go back next year.