Camper vs. Leader (Apparently I'm growing up)

Between my junior and senior year in high school, I went to Freedom Academy at Camp Williams where we learned all about leadership, facing our fears, teamwork, patriotism... all those great values. Anyway, I remember the rappel tower looked SO HIGH when I was 17 and surrounded by my peers. I was terrified as I went up those stairs and looked down through the grating to see how high 45 feet looked.

Today, I chaperoned the 9th graders to... yes! Camp Williams. It was the opening activity for the year for our Ambassador program- a mix of social leadership and student government (-ish). Anyway, I ended up at the rappel tower belaying for the afternoon. Can I just say that 45 feet isn't nearly as high as it seemed 8 years ago? Also, being a participant who is expected to be a little nervous is vastly different from being the leader who is expected to be outgoing, fearless, and the general cheerleader. Vastly different! It's much more fun to me, but also much more exhausting. One student took almost twenty minutes to come down, as well as multiple individual pump-up sessions, conversations to get her mind off of it, lots and lots and lots of encouragement, my going down next to her and a National Guard guy joking around with her on the way down. I even started chants and cheering as a group and eventually had to convince my group to just walk away and leave her with the adults to come down. (Followed by a whole lot of praise when she finally made the venture). Wow... who knew that teen psychology was going to be part of my training? And who knew that I'd be loving it this much? Even with the frustration of mispronouncing 30% of their names. :)