My friend Katie and I drove back to camp. I felt sick, my heart crumbled into pieces. TEN weeks. I still had ten weeks to work at summer camp. Our first of four camps had not even begun. I doubted whether I had the strength to finish one camp let alone the entire summer. I knew that God had made one thing clear. The relationship that held my future and all my dreams was to end. I knew his heart was already gone. I wasn't sure exactly where it went, but I knew it was over.
Could it really be that just two weeks before he shopped for an engagement ring for me? Wasn’t I just standing in a bridal shop trying on wedding gowns? What happened? Did someone change his mind? Was there someone else? I wondered if our relationship had been real. Had he ever loved me? I even doubted God and His hand in any of this. Yet at the same time I had this weird sense of relief. I felt like I was drowning and just coming up for air at the same time. My future was completely blank and it terrified me.
I walked back into camp still unable to eat. Even the sight of food made me want to throw up. I knew I needed to eat, I just couldn't. The sickness I felt in my heart had traveled to my stomach. I didn't want to see him. I couldn't even look at him. Apparently he felt the same, he avoided every space I filled. And we hadn't even broken up yet.
Camp began, parents dropped off their kids and I became mother to campers for two weeks. I had to focus on them and couldn't let myself get in the way. I wasn't sure how or if I could do it. Yet I pressed on with a forced smile and a broken heart. I only saw him in passing. He was busy running the horse barn and I was with kids 24/7. How could we break up if we never actually talked? I knew it was coming and I just wanted it to be over.
Finally my favorite night arrived...move night. I took my kids out to the hill in their pj's. They carried sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows, ready to watch a movie under the stars. My co-counselor had the night off and I was ready to sit numbly and watch a movie. At the same time I wondered if tonight would be the night. I hadn’t seen him, so I assumed he had the night off. As I approached the hill, there he was setting up the movie. My stomach dropped. I got my girls situated knowing I wasn't going to see the movie. I asked my friend Katie to watch my girls. After the movie started he and I went to the climbing tower to talk, my stomach rolled. The Incredibles played in the background as I listened and waited for the words to come. I didn’t fight it. As he spoke the words I expected my world, my plans, my future crumbled around me. I knew I had to trust God, but I doubted Him at the same time. We said we would still be friends. I wondered if we could be. We hugged and walked back to the movie just as it finished. No one else knew my life had forever changed or that my heart was gone. The last shards of my broken heart left at that climbing tower. I looked at my friend Katie. She asked with her eyes if it had happened. I nodded holding back the wave of emotion that crashed against the walls of where my heart once sat.
I mechanically walked my girls back to our cabin. I barely held myself together. My girls knew something was wrong. I was grateful they had showered and were ready to go to sleep. I turned out the lights and went outside. I wept on my cabin steps. I had never felt so scared or unwhole in my entire life. Never had I felt so alone or trapped. It was only week one. How would I survive nine more? Here, with him?
My friend Katie joined me as quickly as she could. My sweet and mercy giving friend. She sat with me and hugged me. And so it began, the longest summer of my life filled with more struggle and heartache than I ever knew I could handle. A summer that tore me down into nothing so that God by His grace could build me back up again.
Part One of My Story
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