It’s The Closest Thing I Have To A Safe Space

For most of the year, things don’t feel exactly right. But why should anything feel right? There are numerous horrible things taking place across Earth every single day, and I can’t even do the slightest thing about it. So many people die, so many are hurt. And I always feel so isolated from everyone else around me. Like there’s some sort of partition between me and everyone else. I can talk to them, I can relate to them, but I can’t fully reach through it and truly understand them. Seeing people’s problems from beyond this partition, I want to help. And I try to as best I can. I can give people words of encouragement. I can give them everything I can.

I wish more than anything that I could go over to people and deal with their problems myself, but that partition separates them from me. But that partition doesn’t just keep me from helping others. It keeps me from helping myself too. Most of the time I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know who I will become. But sometimes I can see a small glimmer of clarity. Of hope. Hope that I can solve my problems. Hope that I can break that partition, and truly become myself. Those glimmers give me the strength to continue.

However, for about four weeks every year, those little glimmers turn into a massive, glowing, light. For those four weeks. I go to a summer camp. Here, we don’t have to worry about the future, the past, or feeling safe. It’s the closest thing I have to a safe space. Here, people like me can take a break from the real world, and bolster ourselves against the atrocities that we have to deal with using hope. Because this place doesn’t just give me hope that there are good people in the world. It gives me hope that anyone can be a good person. That anyone can become themselves. And, better yet, when I hide here, I am with people like me.

We like medieval fantasy, science fiction, video games, books, and so many other things. This place also makes me realize that I don’t have to brave the world alone. That I can have help when I face the whole universe, and that we, as one, can change the world for the better. That we won’t have to fight each other over petty things like land, or resources needed to survive in this capitalist hellscape. And we can simply continue learning, having fun, and growing. That we won’t be fighting over minor differences. That everyone who needs help will be not only accepted, but assisted. That love will be love. And that everyone will finally be able to be exactly who they are, and understanding will be abundant, and present between every person. And the hope that this can happen, in the future, maybe after me, even, makes everything that has and will happen worth it.