One Kid Went to Camp. One Mom Went to the Catskills.

Living in Georgia means our kids have been out of school since May, so by the time the rest of the country starts taking summer vacations, we’re halfway through our summer. This year was especially full because our youngest started day camp for the first time and our oldest headed off to sleepaway camp for nearly a month.

I wanted our daughter's first camp experience to feel special. As the second child, she gets a fair amount of “exhausted parent” energy, and I wanted to be just as intentional with her first summer at camp as I had been with her brother's. I coordinated camp weeks with friends, leaned into her interests, set alarms for “on sale” lists to make sure she got into the best ones, and somehow managed to create what she now believes is the best summer of her life.

At the same time, I was preparing to send our son to camp in an entirely different state and climate.

If you’ve never packed a child for sleepaway camp, let me assure you that the first year feels like opening a very small REI store in your basement. Every single thing has to be labeled, and the packing list is full of things you don’t own. I imagine the second year would be infinitely easier, mostly because the mom unpacking her kid next to me saw me trying to figure out how to hang a backpack and quietly handed me her extra hook. Shout out to her!

I'd anticipated that I'd need a few days to recover, which is exactly why I'd booked four days alone in the Catskills after camp drop-off. What I hadn't anticipated was what I'd be recovering from.

There was pride, excitement, relief that I’d made it through months of preparation, and something else I couldn’t quite name.

I kept thinking about a passage in The Grieving Brain that explains how our brains create maps of the people we love. We’re constantly tracking where they are, where they’ll likely be, and when they’ll come home. The book is about grief after death, but I found myself thinking about those maps (with a full understanding that no one is dead or dying).

My son is exactly where I want him to be. I know he’s safe, and from the camp app pics, he seems to be having a good time. Still, my brain kept scanning for him.

I knew I'd need somewhere to land after camp drop-off, so instead of flying home, I drove into the Catskills and spent four days by myself. It gave me space to settle into the transition and kept me close enough to my son that I could get to him in just a few hours if he needed me. After seeing him in pics on the app, it was clear he does not “need” me.