Love you still…
Article by Alice Schubert Art by Liz White
Hey.
I remember the first day we met, I had just stepped out of one of the old dusty vans, my feet hitting the gravel road. We had driven hours from the airport, an hour since the last real town, with the van jostling full of teenagers: half-familiar faces, happy to be back together again, and half like me… new. I don't know if I counted as new, I had been here before, visiting the place my dad cited as his growing up place, his work for a decade. I knew the faces, those who started as his bosses, who eventually became his friends and family, and would one day, hopefully, be mine. But I hadn’t yet stepped out of the van, new, ready to meet my hopeful friends, to find who I was in the mountains and do the work that came with it. And then, there you were.
I don't remember what you were wearing, or really anything about you. I am sure that you had pulled the people around me, your friends, into hugs. Passing sentiments of the year elapsed back and forth. Introductions kept happening, meeting those who had already arrived, meeting my counselors, and re-meeting the people who had been in the van but far away. It all blurs together, and you are in that blur. It took some time for us to become friends, back then when it felt like we were opposites, but somewhere in the mix of it all, you were there.
Do you remember when we met? I guess I don’t. I do remember when I first saw you. We were sitting in one of the cabins. I am sure we weren’t supposed to be in there. Looking back, it's the kind of thing I would be annoyed at campers doing now. Life was so simple, we were simple, the kind of summer moments I now daydream about in the last days of school. We sat there and talked, the first of many hours we would spend doing so. The first of many years. Before it was work, before we were counselors, and when it was all make-believe.
I remember all of the hours spent over all of the years—well, I know they existed. Talking over Facetime, you said you hated texting. But we did that too. We used to think about what it would be like to work there. To have more skin in the game, to build legacies like the counselors we had before. To have the adventures we could only dream of and to build up the tiny moments we felt cementing in our souls. The work is a lot less glamorous after all the years, and yet we both keep coming back.
For me, it’s been seven years, five of work, and two of wanting it to be work. Over twelve months, a year of summer camp all in all. Of feeling at home in the mountains, of the same log cabins, and of different faces. For you, it's been longer. It's been seven years since a van dropped me off at a place that would become a home, a paycheck, a source of tears, laughter, and love. Seven years since I met you. I think I might only have seven years in me. I don’t remember when I last heard your voice. That's a lie. I know we said goodbye on the last day of the summer, and I am sure you said something, I just don't remember what it was.
Do you remember the feel of my hand squeezing yours, my voice squealing with yours as we ran jumping into the freezing water, that shock to our systems as shocking as the summer dwindling away.
Do you remember when this was our world, when we counted the ten months to get to the part of the year that really mattered? When our conversations were filled with dreams and Buzzfeed quizzes, talk of classes and friendships, I knew all your problems better than my own and you could tell how I felt in a moment by looking at my face. Or do you remember when we stopped talking about life and started talking about work? When it went from “How are you?” to “Can you do…?”. When I had to ask a mutual friend of ours if you were even coming back. If you had a girlfriend. When we started to pass each other on our breaks and just kept walking. Sitting next to other people at meals, and prefacing any favor from each other with “if it’s okay” when we didn't know what would be okay.
When my dad talks of the people he remembers working with, most of them I don't know. They just exist to me in the stories. You exist to me in the stories. I guess the place stays the same every year. The same cabins fill with new campers, tears, and laughter feeding off of the sounds of glee and adventure. The same hills that hold scraped knees and many firsts. The same plates with the same meals, day after day, generation after generation, summer after summer. He tells me about the songs he sang; they have the same words as mine but different tunes. The work: same tools, different hands.
I don’t think you know this, but I remember this past summer I told one of our friends that I wish you would go fuck yourself. You had been an ass that day, frustrated about the job, tired from a long night, and feeling like no one understood how hard you worked. I wanted to understand. I was frustrated because it felt like you weren’t doing any of the work and that meant that I had to. It felt like we were the only two there, the only ones that mattered. I remember when summers were my favorite part of the year because we would be together. Summer's still my favorite part of the year, but it has nothing to do with you. I look forward to my check more than your smiles, and I haven't talked to you about anything other than the job for years.
I have to think to remember now, our first moments, our long conversations, our shared dreams. What the stars looked like when we were lying next to each other. I remember the feel of the blanket and your arm around me as we sang along to the campfire tunes. I remember the nights when you'd meet me outside the door, bathed in shadows. I remember the first time you held me tight, the first time you comforted me, the first time I thought we could be more. I don't remember our lasts.
The songs I sing around a campfire will change. I need to learn the new tunes.
Love you, still.
Alice
(At least I remember that.)