Trauma Work Summer Part Six: Fire Prevention

IT'S A MAP!

Camp Overshare was supposed to create a Fire Prevention Play. There was a contest. It's one of my boss's most dreaded tasks. She assigned it to me, ostensibly because of my teaching artist background, but also maybe because nobody else wanted to deal with it. I tried to conscript Summer Princess to be my play buddy, but she demurred.

I was in a pretty scary house fire in the Nineties, but that was far from my mind as I helped kids create characters and compose a few lines for themselves. They already were pretty expert on fire safety, at least a few sentences worth! The table read went so smoothly! I was so proud.

When it came time to film the play, everything turned to chaos. Something about opening the Fire Prevention Play costume box made everybody a little nuts, and EVERYONE was coming to me for help. And YELLING.

And, horror of horrors, my Squishmallow had gone missing! Holly, the little purple owl with flowers on her head! I'd made her her own (Bi colors!) friendship bracelet at the beginning of camp. She was my comfort object and helped the kids sometimes, too! 

So in the midst of the swirling Fire Prevention Play chaos, Summer Princess and one of the campers were looking for Holly. I found this unbearably touching and ended up crying in Summer Princess's arms. About a misplaced toy! I was not okay.

Holly was eventually found, under a bookshelf. I asked my boss to cover me and went outside to sit on my favorite bench (OMG I loved that bench! I already miss it so!) and do some breathing. What I actually did was cry and be overwhelmed. Summer Princess came out to sit with me. I asked her if I could put my head on her shoulder, and she said I could.

<3 <3 <3

I just want to pause here and say I appreciate this connection so much. I know it was just a summer camp friendship that my own love and attraction blew wildly out of proportion, but it was also real and special.

For me, it was an affection as much as it was an obsession. There was wholesome love there, even as my desire for her made me want to dismantle the inner structures of myself. There was something beautiful between us, even as it descended into what a friend (obviously a friend around my age) described as a "Jerry Springer situation."

I did want to possess Summer Princess. I would have loved to live out my imagination's Ma'am scenarios with her. But also, I got to know her heart a little, and I hope, even amid the panic and OCD and misunderstandings, she knew my heart a little too.