So often, I feel like I have three completely separate parts of my life. I have my Peoria life: my family, my high school friends, my friends who are still in high school, my church family, the Slettens, and just plain familiarity. I have my Camp Tecumseh Life: my RV and LV camper memories, friends that I was campers with, campers I was a counselor for, my old counselors who I now work with side by side, co-counselors who have become best friends, the greatest atmosphere and most beautiful workplace a girl could ask for. I have my Drake life, which is the one that seems to be changing the fastest: my classes, the familiar places, Des Moines Young Life and Wyldlife, Hope, Delta Gamma and my sisters, Honor Board, dorm life, and the familiarity and newness all at the same time.
I think this feeling is just part of being college-aged, but I really don't like it. I wish that my friends in all parts of my life could all be friends too, and that my favorite parts and people from each section of my life could come together and that everything could just happen all at once. But obviously, that's not practical.
However, every once in a while, all of the stars align and I have a day where all three parts of my life collide for a split second. This morning, I got up to finish packing for LeaderShape and to take a couple pictures with my family before they left for church. This is one of the few days that we'll all be together as a family for the summer with my mom traveling for work, my entire summer spent at Tecumseh, and a few weeks at Tecumseh for Michelle too. I love them so much and am thankful for the time we spend together, but I'm more thankful that they love me enough to know that Tecumseh is where I need to be for the summer.
After pictures, I hopped in my Vera Bradley-packed car and headed off to LeaderShape, a leadership conference through DG, which was coincidentally held at none other than the YMCA Camp Tecumseh. To be honest, I was way more excited just to be at camp that I was for the week of leadership-learning that was coming my way. As soon as I got to camp, I walked around for a while, just so happy to be there. I accidentally walked in on a coordinators' planning meeting and got to see Jamie and Maddie and so many other familiar faces. The accidental interruption was so great and instantly made me so much more excited for CT2k12, which I did not even think was possible.
After walking by Shoshone for the first time this year, I headed back to the TLC to officially check in for my week of LeaderShape. I walked in to be greeted by Sandra, one of the Lead Facilitators. I told her I was Sarah Mooney, and immediately someone blurts out, "Are you Sarah from Drake?"Apparently I looked confused, so he continued by introducing himself as Jordan, one of the ATO recruiters coming to Drake in the fall to charter a new chapter on campus. After putting all the pieces together, we chatted for a second, and he said, "Well, we need to become best friends this week." And right then, my attitude started changing and I knew that this week was already going to be better than I had expected.
After unpacking, I went back to chat with Sandra, Jordan, and some of the other facilitators and students. Talking about southern sorority recruitment during the 60s, ChaCha, fall and spring cotton, and just getting to know each other was the perfect way for me to open up and branch out right away, already starting to accomplish my personal goal for the week.
Right before we were about to start programming for the afternoon, Sarah Wright and Carolyn Kata showed up at the TLC and Grace McGill and I got to see them for just a quick minute. I love mini camp reunions like this because there's just lots of hugging and smiling and "so glad to see ya" that it just makes you happy.
During the first big group meeting of all forty-nine students in the "Learning Community," we broke up into smaller groups to come up with community ideals and behaviors. It was cool to see that so many of the same themes and ideas were present on each group's list. Next, we were split up into four "clusters" with one "Cluster Facilitator" that we would do small group work and discussions with for the remainder of the week. I was happy to be placed in Jordan's group after meeting him earlier in the afternoon.
One of the first things that we decided in our "cluster" was that we would call ourselves a family, because that's what we wanted to become by the end of the week. We made family rules, decided to call ourselves Lambda Alpha, made a cheer, and got to laugh and start building our family community. We jumped right into getting to know each other when we all had to draw a representation of our lives. It was like a getting-to-know-you game on steroids; we all shared where we'd come from, what has made us who we are, and how we got to the place we are now. I really enjoy sharing and talking to people I know about my life, but when it came to a group of 13 people I'd only met five minutes ago, I was extremely hesitant and not ready to be vulnerable, but I didn't have a choice. Looking back now, I could not be happier that we all shared on the first day, because it brought us closer and got all of the small talk and background knowledge out of the way and out in the open, allowing us to grow and learn from each other starting from the present and moving forward.
One of the main reasons I started this blog was to have the opportunity to record things that I never want to forget, so for this week, I'm writing down more detail than you probably want to read, but it's all detail I want to remember, along with my highlights of each day.
Highlights of the Day
- Seeing Sarah Wright after so long
- Meeting so many of my Delta Gamma sisters who love leadership as much as I do
- Meeting Neal and talking about Tecumseh
Today was one of those rare gems where all parts of my life overlapped: seeing my family in the morning, seeing Sar and Jamie and Maddie at Tecumseh, and meeting Jordan and talking about Drake. Taking the time to embrace the extraordinary in everyday is something that I want my life to be continuously defined by.
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