summer of 2022, in the midst of my existentialism of pretending to drag buttons on a screen for 8 hours a day at my internship, i called my friend j.
he said that i should quit if i hated it so much and that i should go to SPARC. they needed more counselors, he would introduce me to the organizer of the camp.
i had known j for the past year and over this year he would not stop talking about how much he liked this mysterious acronym. i met j through an eccentric neighbor i had in college who introduced me because we both took a leave from college around the same time. j also grew up in a hyper-competitive asian american immigrant setting and became disillusioned by all of it in college.
"i've never known anyone who regretted leaving something they hated. quit."
those words rang in my mind. it rang against all the voices that told me to stay. over the voice of my peers, parents, and boyfriend at the time who were making me feel miserable, gaslighting me to stay somewhere eating away at my soul. i thought about all the problems in the world, and how bad sitting and doing nothing in an office felt.
i trusted j. i quit my internship and went to SPARC. i still wasn't exactly sure what SPARC was, but i knew that i'd like it if he liked it.
on the first day of camp, we sat in a circle around a chair. the head of the camp told us to take turns going to the center of the circle and do something with the chair. i panicked, not knowing what i should do.
had i accidentally joined a cult? what is this?
thankfully, it wasn't a cult. it was like a creative retreat for people who usually did math. it was so refreshing to be somewhere where it was ok to discover who i was and what i liked, and be around high schoolers again and have a lens to look back on how i might have been like before going to college.
every afternoon, people self-hosted activities of what they liked, played board games, went to classes if we felt like it. the classes ranged from philosophy to theory to math. we were encouraged to meet each other in 1 on 1s, which were nice to get to know people and their interests.
most of the people at the camp had a blog and enjoyed writing and reflecting. something about being around other people who spent a lot of time in their head empowered me to do that more too, so that summer i wrote a lot. i sat on the grass and wrote. i sat on a chair and wrote. i wrote and wrote until my obsidian tabs shrunk into little slivers.
it was the first time i felt sure that thinking the way i did was ok and that it's okay to not stay somewhere i didn't like.
it's been three years since I went to SPARC, and each time I get involved, i remember what a pivotal time it was for me. i remember how much clearer and more confident my voice became after reflecting so much at SPARC, and am so grateful for all that its given me.
this week, i'll be going back to SPARC again and i'm so excited to be there again, this time a little less lost. i'm excited to meet and help other students who were in my shoes before, and help them find their way.
