On Experience

I am TIRED this morning! Last night, as I was resting at home, already a bit worn out from the week (it's been busy, not bad, not overwhelming, just busy), I got a call from my husband Chris. There was a situation at camp he needed my help with.

Now, my husband is great at what he does. And his staff this summer is just phenomenal. So I knew that if he was asking me to come, things really had gotten crazy. I won't go into details, but we just had one camper that created some pretty major fireworks (figuratively). She's fine. Everyone else is fine. No one was hurt. But a little before midnight, a parent finally came to retrieve her. The situation had reached a point where that was, really, the only option.

We always hate to have to make that choice. But it is always the choice, really, of the camper. The great infrequency of kids having to be sent home evidences how seriously Chris takes it, and how hard the entire staff works to prevent it.

It struck me, though, in the course of the whole episode, how my own understanding and maturity has changed (hopefully grown) over the years. I saw myself in the eyes of the college-aged staff, who so desperately wanted everything to be okay. Felt stung by the mean words of the camper who wanted to blame everyone else for her actions. I remember the years it took to be able to begin to understand the difference between a situation which was my fault, and that which wasn't (no matter what an angry person shouted).

One of the best helps in this was my time in Res Life. You've got to get very clear in your own head whose fault it is when a drunk college student tries to tell you it's your fault they've got to meet with the Dean. I tell you what though, you get over that pretty quick. But the bigger challenge, and the most important, is to learn not just to not take it all personally, but also to be able to stay calm, and not escalate the situation.

The sad thing is, so often the people who flip out are the ones whose entire lives are filled with people who overreact. They want to you do the same, because that's all they know. Other times, people have issues far beyond what an untrained person can handle. I may be a pastor, but I am no psychologist. I cannot control someone having a breakdown. I can try to keep them from hurting anyone till professionals arrive, but you sometimes learn the hard way that getting in over your head is dangerous for everyone.

I remember that my junior year in college, we had quite a situation on our hands. I had been away for the fall semester, studying abroad, as had my roommate Meg. We came back to campus and I took over as a Resident Assistant in an upperclass quad building. Meg and I moved into a suite with three other girls.

Long story short, for reasons I'll never entirely know, but spurred in part by not getting into the sorority she wanted, one of our roommates downed a bottle of pills. In front of her boyfriend. In her room in our suite. Campus security, ambulance called, and her off to have her stomach pumped...in the days to come, her parents didn't seem to think their was any problem, though she threatened to try again when (after not really doing much) they sent her back to our room. Our suite mates, some who were very close friends with her, were beside themselves. They were paranoid for days she'd try it again. After all, she said she would.

We ended up meeting with the Dean and explaining that we didn't feel safe with her in our suite. We didn't feel it was okay to expect college kids to keep an eye on a suicidal person. The college convinced her to take a leave of absence. She was furious at us. Swore we had overreacted. It was our fault she'd had to take a leave of absence. She even had a friend write a scathing letter in the school paper about it all. Of course, the story was far from what the letter portrayed. And we couldn't (or rather, wouldn't) refire publicly about it.

We all go through life hopefully growing along the way. But as one of my college profs would say, "You have to grow old, we don't have to grow up." Some people never do. But some do. Sometimes we learn from our misfires, our mishandling, our pains, embarassments and even our successes (which often surprise even us).

Goodness knows last night I not only got to see my experience come in handy, but I also learned a whole lot more...