Confessions of a FOMO Camper

I have a confession:  I have FOMO.  Even before it was a “thing,” I had it.  My mom said that at college, “Sheila never missed a party.”  I’m still like that.  So of course I went to the Alumni Reunion over Labor Day Weekend in 2025.

Saturday afternoon, there is always a happy-hour/mixer/hangout at the Rec Hall where we catch up with friends from far and wide, look at old photos and just visit with each other.  Imagine my shock when a fellow alum announced that she was not going to the Saturday afternoon event.  She said she had no desire to go, declaring, “I came for myself and for my friends in my cabin and I’m going to stay right here.” I think I just smiled.  I didn’t know what to say.  While the beauty of the weekend is that we can hop on and hop off as we like, why would you want to miss something?  I decided to go down and hang with my homies; catch up with people I hadn’t seen or didn’t know that well – maybe make new friends? Ultimately it did not go as expected.  I ended up speaking with an old counselor of mine. Back in the day, my cabinmates and I gave her a lot of headaches.  A lot.  I don’t think she’s over it, so it was super uncomfortable.  Things didn’t go as expected, but I’m still glad I went. 

So my friend, this non-joiner, got me thinking.  I was in the “spill over” cabin in Jawaks.  We had only four people in our cabin, and I only knew one well, and one I had never met before. In the other (connected) cabins, there were at least 15 people – a big slumber party.  The FOMO kicked in and I wanted to be with them! But my practical side said: less people to share the bathroom with, and less snoring, and an opportunity to make a new friend.  Sunday morning, as we were packing up, we had our own little Chapel moment. We started talking about our health and ailments.  And somehow, we moved onto the first responders on 9/11and their health issues. We all had memories of that day and started to talk about that.  One of the women in our cabin was an EMT and talked about being stationed at the training center on that day.  She had TRAINED the EMT’s; the guys who went into the buildings and didn’t come back.  We listened and we tried to be there for her.

It turns out, being in the small cabin was the best.  We saw a slice of our new friend that we may not have seen in the big cabins and got to build on our friendships.  We now have a group chat.  Just the four of us.

So as I see it, whatever is going on, we don’t miss out on anything.  Things don’t turn out how we expect, but we don’t miss out.  We find meaningful experiences where we least expect them.  Happy hour, which I thought would be super fun, was kind of a bust.  But drinking coffee, packing up and whining about our aches and pains turned into a beautiful morning of helping a new friend who still has a hard time with her memories of 9/11 and building friendships.