Rest Stop Reunion
Last week I was at the Rest Stop half way to Philadelphia. The big guy and I were meeting my brother and his wife there. We were laughing about how you never see anyone you know at rest stops and there we were seeing eachother...when, just then, I heard someone say "Jessica?"
"Darcie!?"
My brother and his wife, and the jman all thought it was someone from Goucher that I knew...but instead it was my camp counselor from Ronald McDonald Camp 10 years ago!
"I could recognize that smile anywhere." she said. Which made me so happy. When she knew me I was still bald from chemo and blown up like a balloon. What a wonderful woman --And her husband too. They both gave up their two weeks of vacation every year to go to Ronald McDonald Camp for kids with Cancer, or "Cancer Camp" as I fondly call it.
Cancer camp is a funny place where they don't really treat you like you are sick, or were sick or anything. You see kids with one leg riding jet skis. Bald kids sliding down zip lines and then just regular kids, that you'd never, ever know had cancer.
I wrote her an email all about what I've been doing with the last decade of my life and some mushy stuff about how great I think she and her husband are and dealing with being a cancer kid later in life. If you interested, you're welcome to read on.
Dear Darcie:
It was great to run into you!
It was a shame our meeting was so rushed and I didn't get a chance to tell you absolutely everything about what I've been doing. I figured I'd take the chance to do that now.
The last time we spoke, I'm sure I hadn't even picked out a college yet. I made my decision late in the spring of my senior year and really love the place I picked. I went to a little school called Goucher College here in Baltimore. There were approximately 1400 undergrads when I started there and my graduating class was just under 300. I thought at first that I would go there for Theater (I'm sure due to John's influence.) But, as time went on, I realized that It just wasn't for me. I took a bunch of theater classes, but fell back on my first creative love, writing.
Goucher happened to have a fantastic creative writing department. Where I got a chance to meet talk to amazing writers, like noble prizing winning poets like Seamus Heaney and best sellers like Margaret Atwood. What a lucky girl I am!
It was strange and liberating to go away to school. I didn't tell anyone at first that I had had cancer. It was kind of neat to be so far away from my hometown where it seemed like everyone remembered me as the girl that got sick. It seemed like too big of a 'bomb' to drop. I remember this odd time, where I wasn't really close enough to anyone to know how'd they react to understanding this part of me, and kept it as my own little secret. But then, as it should, it came out when I was telling stories about adolescence, just like everyone else.
It's funny, that we go through this, but I think all children who have gone through cancer, carry it with them; it's the idea that the disease should not define or make up who we are who we've become. I've never, exactly, wanted to be like everyone else, ever in my life, but there is something you see in other young people around you, which you realize later, is an innocence you never really got to have. (I don't mean this in the devastating way, that you didn't have a childhood, but just the opposite, that you didn't ever really have the chance to think you were invincible or to be ungrateful for life.) So because of all of this, you sort of feel abnormal a lot of the time and are angry at the disease for making you different from everyone else.
I'm sharing this with you because I think I would have had a lot harder of a time dealing with all of this, if it weren't for the two of you. There is something that happens at camp where, because these fantastic grown-ups and incredible kids around who so obviously cherish life and experience, you feel (maybe for the first time) that you won't be lonely in the world. It is so freeing to understand that there are people out there who "get it."
I don't think about having cancer all the time, now. It's kind of a strange realization when I think about it. There was a time when I didn't think I'd ever have a moment where I forgot about it, because it defined me. It made me angry that it defined who I was. I never really got a chance to thank you both for helping me define myself, despite my disease. I couldn't have grown to where I am now, with this clear understanding of how necessary that part of my life was to who I have become, but doesn't make it up entirely. Going to camp and being around you two and other special people there, was the first time I'd ever been with people, outside my family, who saw through my cancer to who I am and helped me grab hold of that too.
So thank you.
Okay, okay, I'm done with the mushy-you've-changed-my-life-did-you-know-that?- stuff. I'll get back to the catching up business.
So, I graduated from Goucher College in 2003 and was the speaker at graduation. (My mom was so proud.) After graduation I moved to downtown traveled for a little bit, and temped for a year or so until I found the job I'm at now.
I work at J-H-P-I-E-G-O, it's a non-profit group, affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. They get funding through the US government to provide healthcare to women in developing countries. We work mostly in Africa dealing HIV/AIDS prevention. I don't do any of that exciting stuff, but I'm pretty excited to be here all the same.My office is right on the harbor and I can go out and watch the boats whenever I want.
I have a lot of friends around the area who went to school with me. I've been dating a guy, Jason (he was at the rest stop with us, I just forgot to introduce him. Oops.). I live in a section of Baltimore called Hampden, famous for putting pink flamingos on their front lawns and keeping Christmas lights up all year long, and calling every one "Hon." This is the area of town where John Waters is from originally, he made films like "Hairspray." I tutor middle school aged kids at the Family Center in town. My apartment is a tiny house with a nice front porch and a yellow door and I'm really happy here.
Last week I was at the Rest Stop half way to Philadelphia. The big guy and I were meeting my brother and his wife there. We were laughing about how you never see anyone you know at rest stops and there we were seeing eachother...when, just then, I heard someone say "Jessica?"
"Darcie!?"
My brother and his wife, and the jman all thought it was someone from Goucher that I knew...but instead it was my camp counselor from Ronald McDonald Camp 10 years ago!
"I could recognize that smile anywhere." she said. Which made me so happy. When she knew me I was still bald from chemo and blown up like a balloon. What a wonderful woman --And her husband too. They both gave up their two weeks of vacation every year to go to Ronald McDonald Camp for kids with Cancer, or "Cancer Camp" as I fondly call it.
Cancer camp is a funny place where they don't really treat you like you are sick, or were sick or anything. You see kids with one leg riding jet skis. Bald kids sliding down zip lines and then just regular kids, that you'd never, ever know had cancer.
I wrote her an email all about what I've been doing with the last decade of my life and some mushy stuff about how great I think she and her husband are and dealing with being a cancer kid later in life. If you interested, you're welcome to read on.
Dear Darcie:
It was great to run into you!
It was a shame our meeting was so rushed and I didn't get a chance to tell you absolutely everything about what I've been doing. I figured I'd take the chance to do that now.
The last time we spoke, I'm sure I hadn't even picked out a college yet. I made my decision late in the spring of my senior year and really love the place I picked. I went to a little school called Goucher College here in Baltimore. There were approximately 1400 undergrads when I started there and my graduating class was just under 300. I thought at first that I would go there for Theater (I'm sure due to John's influence.) But, as time went on, I realized that It just wasn't for me. I took a bunch of theater classes, but fell back on my first creative love, writing.
Goucher happened to have a fantastic creative writing department. Where I got a chance to meet talk to amazing writers, like noble prizing winning poets like Seamus Heaney and best sellers like Margaret Atwood. What a lucky girl I am!
It was strange and liberating to go away to school. I didn't tell anyone at first that I had had cancer. It was kind of neat to be so far away from my hometown where it seemed like everyone remembered me as the girl that got sick. It seemed like too big of a 'bomb' to drop. I remember this odd time, where I wasn't really close enough to anyone to know how'd they react to understanding this part of me, and kept it as my own little secret. But then, as it should, it came out when I was telling stories about adolescence, just like everyone else.
It's funny, that we go through this, but I think all children who have gone through cancer, carry it with them; it's the idea that the disease should not define or make up who we are who we've become. I've never, exactly, wanted to be like everyone else, ever in my life, but there is something you see in other young people around you, which you realize later, is an innocence you never really got to have. (I don't mean this in the devastating way, that you didn't have a childhood, but just the opposite, that you didn't ever really have the chance to think you were invincible or to be ungrateful for life.) So because of all of this, you sort of feel abnormal a lot of the time and are angry at the disease for making you different from everyone else.
I'm sharing this with you because I think I would have had a lot harder of a time dealing with all of this, if it weren't for the two of you. There is something that happens at camp where, because these fantastic grown-ups and incredible kids around who so obviously cherish life and experience, you feel (maybe for the first time) that you won't be lonely in the world. It is so freeing to understand that there are people out there who "get it."
I don't think about having cancer all the time, now. It's kind of a strange realization when I think about it. There was a time when I didn't think I'd ever have a moment where I forgot about it, because it defined me. It made me angry that it defined who I was. I never really got a chance to thank you both for helping me define myself, despite my disease. I couldn't have grown to where I am now, with this clear understanding of how necessary that part of my life was to who I have become, but doesn't make it up entirely. Going to camp and being around you two and other special people there, was the first time I'd ever been with people, outside my family, who saw through my cancer to who I am and helped me grab hold of that too.
So thank you.
Okay, okay, I'm done with the mushy-you've-changed-my-life-did-you-know-that?- stuff. I'll get back to the catching up business.
So, I graduated from Goucher College in 2003 and was the speaker at graduation. (My mom was so proud.) After graduation I moved to downtown traveled for a little bit, and temped for a year or so until I found the job I'm at now.
I work at J-H-P-I-E-G-O, it's a non-profit group, affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. They get funding through the US government to provide healthcare to women in developing countries. We work mostly in Africa dealing HIV/AIDS prevention. I don't do any of that exciting stuff, but I'm pretty excited to be here all the same.My office is right on the harbor and I can go out and watch the boats whenever I want.
I have a lot of friends around the area who went to school with me. I've been dating a guy, Jason (he was at the rest stop with us, I just forgot to introduce him. Oops.). I live in a section of Baltimore called Hampden, famous for putting pink flamingos on their front lawns and keeping Christmas lights up all year long, and calling every one "Hon." This is the area of town where John Waters is from originally, he made films like "Hairspray." I tutor middle school aged kids at the Family Center in town. My apartment is a tiny house with a nice front porch and a yellow door and I'm really happy here.
posted by j-e-s-s-i-c-a at 1:48 PM
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