"Sleepaway camp wasn't exactly part of my childhood vocabulary. My parents didn't believe in paying money for me to rough it in the woods. Instead, summers meant Chinese school, then long afternoons upstairs in their restaurant, tinkering with the office equipment as they worked. My "campfire" was the blue glow of an Xerox bulb as I copied my face and various body parts into high-contrast collages."
"When I signed up, I imagined practicing yoga, journaling, and maybe some meditative staring at trees to reckon with my current life stage. In my 40s, I've started to notice my peers splitting into two very distinct camps (pun unavoidable). Some are bragging about "crushing it" - promotions, triathlons, kitchen renos in their second homes - while others quietly admit that they're phoning it in at work and in their marriages."
A woman in her 40s attended a weekend sleepaway camp inspired by her tween daughter’s camp in the Adirondacks. She expected yoga, journaling, and meditative time in nature to help navigate midlife and create new memories. Childhood summers had involved Chinese school and working in her parents’ restaurant rather than outdoor camping. At camp she noticed peers dividing between high-achieving and disengaged tracks, prompting uncertainty about striving versus surrender. Most camp participants were women decades older, in their 60s and 70s. Spending time with those older women shifted her perspective on aging and offered the clarity she had been seeking.
Read at Business Insider
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