Field Trip

This weekend those in my major are all going on a little retreat down to Montana to have some community time and to meet with a famous author in our field. And I'm nervous.

The reason I'm nervous is because we did this same trip last year, and it was a pretty negative experience. I think it kind of marked the end of the Golden Age of our community for me.

Last year I really anticipated this trip - I had really high hopes for it. I looked forward to spending significant time with all these people that I really valued, and I had the pleasant realization as we split up into separate vehicles that it didn't really matter to me who I sat with, because I liked everyone who was there. And I remember standing in the school foyer waiting to leave and telling my friend that I was just so excited about this trip. It was a giddy feeling. It was great. But it couldn't last - before the end of the day I'd taken an emotional downswing and lost that excitement.

As a result of that emotional crash, my heart felt so empty on this trip, and I felt so needy. I felt uncomfortable in the community. I don't know if it was truth or perception, but it seemed like one of my friends was avoiding me, and that hurt. On one of the nights, another friend and I saw a moon so beautiful that we had to just stop and gaze at it for quite a while - for her this was a powerful time of wonderment and worship; for me, all I could feel was that ache of emptiness.

The night before we left, I spent a long time making cookies to bring for snacks. I made three different kinds to satisfy all the different dietary needs our group has, and it was quite a feat considering all I had was a toaster oven. These cookies sat in one of the vehicles for the first half of our retreat - they didn't even get unpacked. This made me feel like the time and effort I put into making these cookies was just disregarded.

While we were planning this trip, I had asked if we might have a chance to go to a Bath & Body Works since we would be in the States and we don't have those in Canada. I was told that yes, we would make time to do that, so I turned around and told my Mom about that and got a whole list of things she wanted me to pick up for her (she was so excited). But the afternoon we planned to do this on started to run away with us. Most people either had to or wanted to go back to the place we were staying, so we headed back there with the possiblity of going to Bath and Body Works after dropping the others off. As we drove, one of our guests who was in the vehicle with me said, "You know you're not going, right? There's not enough time; they'll be closed." Her "prediction of doom" (I know the language is strong, but those are the words that accompany the memory) made me so sad. I felt like I had been promised, and in turn I had promised my Mom. It hurt that it looked like I wouldn't get to do what was important to me. I stared out the side window, blinking away tears and trying to convince myself that "I have value here, I have value in this group, I have value," because that belief was really being threatened. And although it turned out that we did go to Bath & Body Works, that didn't erase the pain of the earlier tears.

It also hurt to see conflict within our group and the pain that caused my friends. In particular, one of my friends felt disliked by the head of our major. When the time came to load the vehicles and drive home we wanted to switch up the seating arrangement and sit with different people, but our leader refused. My friend believed this was because she did not want her in her vehicle. This really hurt her, and it hurt me too. I would hope for more from our leader. A few days later my friend was asked to leave our major, which caused much pain and awfulness in our community.

Upon returning, some of the guests we brought on our retreat with us, staff from the school, wrote negative reports about the trip. They claimed it was unnecessary and insignificant. That criticism and the resulting defensiveness were really hard.

Other friends who were on this trip last year have other painful memories, but their overall experience was pretty positive. For me, although there were positives (deepening friendships, our night of encouragement), they are overshadowed by the negatives.

So I look forward to this year's retreat with trepidation. Honestly, it's probably not going to be as bad as I fear (I'm not even sure what specifically I fear...) and it can't be as bad as last year. Most of those triggers are no longer around, and I am coming at it with a completely different attitude. You can't disappoint me when I already expect the worst - it can only go up from here.