I grew up spending a lot of time at an all girls summer camp.  My Mom worked there year around so I went during the summer when everyone was there, and I had the whole place to myself in the off season.  It was a place of much joy, self discovery, and challenges.  I remember it fondly and feel a part of me is still there. I often visit it in my dreams, and teach songs I learned there to kids.  Although most of the staff and campers were female, there were always a group of men who came for the summer to do maintenance and help in the kitchen.  They had their own cabin, far from us, but as the only men there, they had a strong presence.  They’d always be around fixing things, and would put on funny skits at the talent shows. The counselors would always tease them and flirt.

When I was still pretty young, maybe around 8 years old. Jared* was one of the “guys” on staff for a few years.  He had long blonde hair, and was soft spoken.  He taught woodshop and I took his class for a few years.  He wasn’t a great shop teacher- he was a little lazy. I remember spending several classes sanding a prefab jewelry box, that I’m pretty sure came pre-sanded, and he kept saying “sand more.”  I was taking the class in the hope of using the power tools, not to spend all class sanding, but I still liked talking to him.  Some of the girls thought he was weird, but they thought I was weird too, and I felt an indefinable kinship with him.

Since my Mom was year round manager, I knew all the behind the scenes gossip. As camp drew to a close, I learned that cocaine had been discovered in his cabin, and that he had been asked to leave and not come back.

Most of the campers and a lot of staff had left already, and I was wondering around the pretty quiet camp, when I ran into Jared.  I think he was going to avoid me but I brazenly got in his way.  I wanted to understand.  This is how our conversation went to the best of my memory.

After I greeted him, he awkwardly said, “I think you heard I’ve been asked to leave.”

I nodded and said, with the honesty and lack of filter of a child, “I heard they found drugs in your cabin.”

He sighed and looked into the distance.  I could tell he didn’t want to have this conversation. “That’s not the only reason, but yeah.”

“Why do you do drugs?” I asked.

I don’t’ think he was quite this straightforward, but he said something that I understood as, “Actually lots of the counselors do drugs, we all do them together at night when there are no kids around, I was just the one who got busted.”

I don’t remember exactly what he said then, or what I had heard from behind the scenes, but I gathered that someone had found makeup, wigs, and girls clothes in his cabin, got uncomfortable, and that they had ratted him out for the drugs.  I didn’t understand this at all.  Clothes, makeup and clothes had no correlation to gender in my mind and I didn’t think it was weird that a man would wear ‘girls clothes.’  My best friend (a boy) and I cross-dressed and role played opposite genders all the time, so in my mind this was normal.

I asked him again, “Why do you do drugs though?”

He looked deep into my eyes.  I knew by this age that adults were full of sugarcoated bullshit, and I could feel honesty when it was real.  I could tell he was trying to reach me with some actual truth that I could understand across the difference of our age, while still being appropriate.  I could feel his deep search for the right words.

He spoke slowly, with long pauses. I listened like my life depended on it.  “Sometimes…  Adults….well… We’ve had this secret sadness, for so long.  It’s really deep, and it feels like it will never end.  We search…. for anything… that will make it less, or to make it go away… even just for a little bit…  Sometimes that makes us do really stupid stuff, like drugs.”

I took this in.  I understood parts of this. I also had a secret sadness, that I felt no one could see. I had not found anything to make it less.  I stayed silent and nodded.

He continued, “The dressing up… some people don’t understand it, it scares them.” He was still looking intensely into my eyes, trying to evaluate his safety, to try to assess my understanding, decide how much to say.  I could feel this honesty was precarious.  I held my breath, psychically willing him to continue.  “I would never. Ever. Hurt a child.  Never.  I care so deeply for all the kids, everyone, here.”

Gravel crackled. Someone drove nearby.  The spell was broken. I told him I’d miss him. He shared that he didn’t think most of the kids liked him so this meant a lot. I don’t remember much of the conversation after that, but it was soon over and I never saw him again.

About two years later I was playing basketball in my driveway, with my mom nearby.  One of her friends stopped by and they were catching up, talking about camp people, and I was eavesdropping.  I heard Jared’s name and my ears perked up. I heard my mom whisper scandalously, “he’s a she now.”

My mind exploded.  A man had become a woman. Was that possible? How did that happen?  If that was possible, could I become a boy? Why didn’t I know about this? Why wasn’t this common knowledge? Adrenaline coursed through my body. Impossible hope tempered by disbelief made my blood run hot with excitement.

I couldn’t stop myself, I butted into the conversation.  “Jared’s a woman now?  How? Is it possible for boys to become girls and girls to become boys?” I asked.  My mom looked really uncomfortable.  I knew she didn’t want me to be a boy, so I kept some of my questions in.  Her answer was stumbling, nonsensical, and gave me no information at all, except that I should stop asking questions.

I felt that similar wall, the same one I had hit when I had learned from her that puberty would not give me a penis, that my voice would never drop, and that we could not pretend I was boy at the beach so I could wear swim trunks and no shirt. I should not even be asking these things. Except this time, there was a hole in that wall.  Through that hole, I could see that there was information that I did not have yet, there were possibilities that I had given up on.  They were trying to hide it, but they had given me a small pebble of hope, and I hid it in a secret box in my mind.  Jared had done it.  It might be ok for me.

Jared, I have no other name for you.  I used a male pronoun for your undeniably female life for the purpose of storytelling, and conveying my understanding as a child. You are she, her, woman, female. You belonged at that all girls camp in ways I didn’t understand then.  Wherever you are, I hope that deep sadness has ebbed, that you are accepted more where you are now than you were there. I hope you don’t need drugs to dull the sharp edges of life. 30 years later, I am thankful for that bit of honesty that granted permission for my secret world.

*Name has been changed