Lesson 1: One thing I knew of myself going into the summer was that I am someone who likes to know people. I honestly hate the getting to know people stage because I can't stand not knowing how to make someone laugh or what their family is like. I do my very best in life to skip right past this stage by just pretending to know EVERYONE right off the bat and you better believe I did that this summer. I admit, I did not get to know my staff during training. Straight up fail. And then we get to week one and we were on the road spending all of our time together and I had the joy of knowing everyone quickly! Now, even though this totally worked (in my humble opinion), I don't necessarily think this was the right thing to do... It did mean a couple awkward moments where my staff didn't know my sarcasm yet and maybe thought I was a total jerk. And for that reason, I don't think, if given the opportunity to AssDir again, that I will skip the getting to know you part intentionally.
Lesson 2: Who knew being the boss was lonely? No one told me this. No one taught us about it in training. No one even mentioned it. I didn't even really notice until around week three. With SpringHill, I had always had that "family." I had been one of the crew chiefs or counselors; I had been part of the team. A few weeks into summer I realized, I am not part of the team (in the sense that I was one of the players). I was a "coach", and the coach is not invited to the bonding parties or to go out to dinner with the team unless it was planned by one of the other "coaches." When the college student that is still totally inside of me realized this, a very depressing couple of days commenced. I had to reconcile the idea that I was totally on the team, I was just playing a different role, and with that came certain expectations. By the end of the summer, I totally understood and actually enjoyed this part of my new "roles," but man, those couple of days were crappy...
Lesson 3: Just like being a counselor, this job really has no "end date." I still have campers that message me or email or facebook chat and I am confident that is how it will continue to be with my staff. At least, I hope that is how it will be.... (hint hint).
Lesson 4: Here is one of the wife lessons. MAKE TIME. or you could put it, SAY NO.I found myself fighting that whole I-am-the-boss-so-I-am-alone thing by saying yes absolutely any time people invited me somewhere. It was partially for the aforementioned reason but also because I was making new friends and I hadn't done that in a while. I did not do very good at the balance thing. Especially because it seemed like anytime I wasn't with my wonderful staff, I was doing work preparing for whatever was coming next during the week. Basically, I loved my job too much and for that, husband, I apologize (and I love you). If I have the opportunity to do this wonderful thing again, I WILL do better, not only for my hubster, but for the sake of me doing my job well. I don't think you can say you did a job well just because you did it a lot; you do a job well when you are taking care of your job as well as yourself. And frankly, I really missed Stephen for about 4 months straight.
Lesson 5: Give more of myself.... to everyone. Part of my "skipping the get to know you part" thing is that it is a total self-preservation thing. I have been hurt by friends a few times in my life and frankly, those hurt more than being hurt by guys to me. In that, I tend to self-preserve. I talk to a lot of people, get to know them, care for them, but I don't tell them things about myself. Some of me is even cringing writing this paragraph because I feel like I am over-sharing. It is something I promised myself I would work on but summer was pretty much my first time to exercise that particular muscle and I kind of failed. A few people got in there and really knew me (you probs know who you are) but my goal was to share with everyone and to be vulnerable with the group and I think I may have failed at that... So, I am really sorry guys. Call me up. I will share. You just have to beat me to the punch of the question asking...
So for the sake of a really long blog post, I leave you at that. There were a lot more lessons, some that I am still learning, but that is what life is about! Don't be afraid to admit your failures, and always remember where you started from...
