Here’s to a New Decade with Camp Thirlby
More often than not, we always look at the flaws of the past 12 months. Or in this case, the past 120 months, the past ten years. With a brand new decade here, it’s almost impossible to avoid contemplating how we can make our pasts better, to pretend like our old mistakes are now ghosts of our prior selves that will stop haunting us with the turn of the decade. We fixate on the dark past in hopes of a brighter future — I know I’ve pondered, even spiraled, over the mistakes I’ve made and the deep pits of despair I’ve been stuck in this year.
I overthink what could have been this summer, a low point in my year, where I should have known the ways in which to make me feel more like myself. I should have known what to ask for in relationships, I should have not let the people in my life push me around, I should have avoided heartbreak and loss altogether. I should have known how to cope with my anxiety and not let it out on an ill-prepared audience, I should have taken initiative of my feelings and simply not gone down the rabbit hole all humans go down when navigating how to live — that is, having experiences to only realize you never want to live through those again.
I should have, I should have, I should have — I like to think that these wishes could be immediately cured with the turn of the clock today. Yet, what if we instead attempted to settle with these experiences, to maybe even treat them as formative moments that aided us in our journeys to where we are now? Would we still be beating ourselves up for our pasts if we did the opposite — if we celebrated not only living these moments, but coming out of them alive?
Lately, I’ve been telling myself that I’m so young. And I am! And we are! We have time to mess up, we have room to make mistakes and have our hearts broken and maybe even consciously make questionable decisions. We can bring these potentially unsettling memories into the new decade with a different lens; instead of attempting to erase them, we could sit with them, reflect on them, and ask ourselves what can be done to make this process less uncomfortable. That could mean something as drastic as change, or simply learning to be okay with our pasts.
And what about the good? Why do we never take our positive experiences into the new year — is it because we’re afraid that this good will only last until the clock hits midnight, and 2020 automatically means a clean slate, even for those moments we should hold onto? I then think about the good memories I’d like to bring into the new year — I started going to therapy, I finally began to understand what I actually want from my romantic life, I realized who my real friends are (at least for now!). And most importantly, I got to launch the magic that is Camp Thirlby!
This year, we saw Camp Thirlby grow from zero to 500+ followers on Instagram, from three to 18 regular contributors and even more one-time contributors, from zero to four contributing artists, from zero to a whopping 112 pieces. All this in just nine months!
We began with health-related topics, spanning the sexual, mental, and physical, and grew to include film reviews; playlists; personal essays on dating, culture, queerness, and more; and even regular astrology content. We started with traditional journalism pieces and later published comics, photo series, creative writing, and even poetry, and continue to accept more that expands our definition of what Camp Thirlby is all about. We carried out four series, all encompassing our writers’ personal memoirs relating to that certain topic, and were able to read and listen about our complicated relationships with hair, our queer trajectories in lieu of Pride month, the power of language and words, and most recently, how we came to learn (and unlearn) the everchanging norms of sex and dating.
And with the new year, we continue, as I previously stated, to expand our definition of what Camp Thirlby is about. It began as a platform for and by young voices to share the stories, experiences, and ideas of young people on all things health and wellness, whatever that may entail. This stretched to topics of culture, lifestyle, and identity, where we always continue to place marginalized identities first. More often than not, media excludes both young voices and minority voices, so Camp’s mission was to fill this gap. And this is still our mission — it just may look like something greater than what Almila and I ever once imagined when we were discussing what this platform could look like in February of last year. A weekly column transformed into a platform and community for young people whose voices have been silenced for too long. And so, in 2020, we hope to continue to amplify your voices even further.
So I ask you this: what do you want to see at Camp Thirlby in the new decade? For readers, what content will inspire you to enter 2020 with the comfort of your pasts, but also the excitement of the future?
And for interested writers: how are you settling with your past? How are you moving on with the future? How have you reckoned with your past selves and brought them into this period of change and transition? If you have any pitches on the topic of origins and past selves, send your ideas to geiselnatalie@gwu.edu with “Camp Thirlby Series Submission: Past Selves” as the subject. For all other pitches and submissions, send your stories to that same email with “Camp Thirlby: Pitch” as the subject. And if you’re just along for the ride: we want to hear from you. Send us any topics you’d like to see from us at the same email with “Camp Thirlby: Topics” as the subject.
At the end of the day, Camp Thirlby is here and continues to thrive because of you and your stories. We look forward to learning about you, how you’ve learned to comfortably sit with your past and, most importantly, how you’re taking this into the new decade and the road ahead of us.
Happy 2020!
Natalie Geisel, Lead Camp Thirlby Counselor
About the Author
Natalie Geisel (she/her) is a senior at The George Washington University studying women’s, gender, and sexuality studies with minors in English and communication. Her love of writing sprouted from starting her fashion blog in high school, and her current written work focuses on topics of LGBTQ+ content, culture, and identity. Launching and managing Camp Thirlby was out of interest in intersecting gender and sexuality into the world of youth and wellness, hoping to add marginalized voices, like her own queer one, to an underrepresented community. When she’s not writing, she spends her spare time at dance rehearsal, attending local indie shows in the DC area, or finding the best cafes that serve oat milk. She’s passionate about inclusive sex education and sustainable fashion and thinks everyone should be, too. You can view all of her written work on her website.
