Day 6: John J surprises me

When I was in college, I worked at a summer camp for kids who have health issues.

This was during the summers of 1981 & 1982, I think... Camp Holiday Trails, just outside the city limits of Charlottesville, was an extraordinary experience for me -- I'd never been to a summer camp as a kid -- I loved it and was exhausted by it. I spent 2 summers there and have photo albums full of fun pictures.

One of my camp friends, John, became a great friend after camp was over. We were both in the graduate counseling program at UVa -- he was a year ahead of me. He and our group of friends lived outside of Charlottesville, in Ivy, Virginia. We called ourselves the "Ivy League". Just thinking about that brings a smile to my face. Many fond memories.

I stayed in touch with John until after we were each married. Lost touch for a few years. Reconnected as my now ex-husband and I were struggling for custody of his kids. Disconnected again for many years. And earlier this year, I heard from John that Camp was having a reunion of counselors, would I go?

I drove to Charlottesville and Camp, nervous about returning. Nervous about meeting up with John again. I was late to the gathering. John was even later. There were only about 5 people at the gathering so it was noticeable -- no "scooting in" and "sliding out".

Drinks after that uncomfortable camp reunion. It was so easy to talk. I'm so grateful that he reached out.

Fast forward to the week after the Heal Trauma Fast training. It's Wednesday. I get an email from John. It's a notice that someone -- I don't recognize the name -- who has passed away. An invitation to the funeral. So I call John to ask who the "someone" was, remember the connection, laugh at some of the memories and fill him in on the training briefly.

A few hours later, John is calling me back, asking if I could bring the training to his work. He's the admissions coordinator for a large organization that has residential treatment and therapeutic foster care services. He asked if I could do the training in a day, rather than 2, and asked for a proposal. WOW!

I sent the proposal the day before Thanksgiving. It's been forwarded to those who have the power (and money) to hire me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and also detaching from the outcome. Which is surprisingly easier than I thought it would be.

Already, I've used the outline for a 1-day training to develop a proposal for the AMHCA conference, so it's saved me some time, energy and effort.

And one of my current LPC supervisees heard me talk about the training and how John was interested, so he connected the idea to his organization.

I figure that SOMETHING will come from the requests. It may not even be from the folks who originally asked, though.

The energy keeps flowing, although it's not as full-out as in November. That's ok, because I have enough to work on as the semester winds down.

Even more MWM to come...

Suzan