  I am not going to Twinlow Camp this summer for the time in eight years. That’s half of my life that I’ve packed my duffle and fled home for the Idaho wilderness. Each summer I have come back with dirt under my fingernails, some lovely memories of a new romance, and a bond with Jesus Christ that defined who I thought I was.
Though a good deal of church camp revolved around annual crushes on counselors, campers, and lifeguards, a significant portion of camp’s purpose was religious renewal. I don’t reflect it in this blog, and maybe not in real life either, but I was very devout. Like, other girls in third grade played jump rope during recess, I read books about the saints. While my cool friends sleep in on Sundays, I was at church as an alter server every goddamn service until I was thirteen. And the important thing to mention is that I wasn’t a naïve kid; I understood the weight of it all.
I knew the arguments (or so I thought) against Christianity. But being a child of God was more important to me than any other role in my life; daughter, sister, friend, student- everything was secondary to my position as a Christian. At a certain point, my own enthusiasm for religion surpassed my parent’s. I drug them to Christian bookstores; I coerced them into buying kid-friendly bibles. But even then, when I was waking up at five-thirty for personal devotion time, only to be followed by Religion class and morning mass at school, I knew something was wrong.
It screamed at me from every direction. I wasn’t good enough for this . Being courteous and mild-mannered may have been easy, but being pious was another thing altogether. Being a good person came not from my pure heartedness, but from wanting to please. Simply put, I was just selfish. I wanted to feel good about myself so I did nice things. So it was that realization that the threads of my faith started to snap, slowly but surely, over the last few years. Where I once swore an oath of chastity, denounced drug use, and used scripture as a rulebook, there is now compromise.
Even now when I announce that I am neither Christian nor atheist, but an in-between, I cringe at myself. The first week I went without praying, I felt queasy. I can’t seem to get rid of my Christian paraphernalia because I feel like throwing away a devotions book will haunt me until I die. And it’s silly, really, that I think about it so much. I watch CBN, addicted to the&nbsp;catty snark I spew at the crew-cut reporters.
And although I’d&nbsp;comfortable with pre-marital relations when I’m sitting here, safe and away from the scary world of boys, the second sex is opportune or possible I freak out like an indignant nun. Yet I can’t go back to being that girl again. I feel like something dark has stained me and being a Christian is no longer in the cards. The one thing that would be nice, the thing that I wish I still had, was the security. I knew who I was, what was right, and what purpose my life held. I think the reason a lot of born-agains become Christians has to do with the identity you inherit. And identity and purpose appeal to people who have unsatisfying lives. But why can’t I at least go back to camp? I can’t face those people. I just can’t. The counselors, the campers, and the lifeguards all had such a paramount role in the development of my life. I learned how to get along in large groups, I learned how to laugh like I meant it, and how to dance at Twinlow.
But the people that have meant so much now are so different than I am. How am I suppose to sit around, eating the spoon-fed salvation? I can’t. Twinlow will rest in my memory along with old best friends, Skydancers, and American Girl books. &nbsp;It hurts so much to let go of church camp that I almost feel like I should have a scar. But that’s part of growing up. Affectionately… Anna 
