The world has been treated to the “summer of love” and Bryan Adams’ “summer of ‘69,” and the everfunny “summer of George!” but my last few months have been the summer I’d like to forget.
In the spring, I was working at a school district in California, teaching art to elementary school munchkins. Then I took one for the team when a horrible family tried to sue the school district over me restraining their older son from beating their younger one. That’s a long story that I’ll probably not bore you with unless everyone really wants to know. Anyways, May came around and I was jobless. So, break out the employment websites!
While perusing the summer camp websites for shits and giggles, I updated an eons old resume I had there. The very next day, I got a call from a camp in northeastern Pennsylvania that was looking for someone to run their Survival Camp program. I also got a call from a camp in upstate New York the following day. That on was a Unitarian Universalist camp looking for an assistant director. I faced a tough decision.
On the one hand, I am a wilderness survival expert, and would have a great time teaching the one subject I adore beyond all others. On the other, I have been hoping and dreaming about running a camp from top to bottom as the director, and an assistant is one step away from that. On the mutant third hand, I was comfortable in my simple life in San Jose with my wonderful fiance, two goofy guinea pigs and large HD tv. Oh, what a conundrum.
Initially, I went down the path of greater authority and chose the assistant director position in New York. So, emails were sent, job offers were accepted from one and turned down from another, and we started to plan for a move to the Empire State. At least for one day, anyway.
The camp in Pennsylvania was on the phone the very next day. In fact, the owner of that camp (and several others) called me himself, and spent an hour trying to convince me to reconsider. In the end, he offered me twice his camp’s original offer, more responsibility, and a strong likelihood for a permanent year-round spot. I was swimming with confusion at the prospect that I had yet another major decision to make.
I hate making decisions. I spend about ten to fifteen minutes just deciding what to order from a restaurant. I prefer to pass the buck on to my lovely assistant, who also loathes making the final choice on anything. So, typically, we spend an hour of “I don’t know, what do you think?” on any given topic.
In this case, I actually stepped up and made the choice that day. I called the New York camp back, and let them know the bad news, and I started figuring out how to move an entire apartment 2,500 miles away in less than two weeks. I was excited, terrified, and hungry – but I couldn’t decide what to eat.
