Endings

“When there is a great disappointment,

we don’t know if that’s the end of the story.

It may be just the beginning

of a great adventure.”

Pema Chödrön

My story is simple and scant compared with what this quote may tell us.

But it happened only a few days before I saw the quote, and it was what I immediately thought of.

My aunt and uncle owned a camp on Crescent Lake in Raymond, Maine – just a 45-minute drive north of my home in Portland. I grew up there; my parents brought me to camp so many times when I was young…and impressionable. I discovered very later on that those years were a turning point for me. Those years defined me and had a meaningful impact on the adult I would become.

My aunt and uncle sold the camp when I was 20 years old, and I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to camp at twenty; I was off to the beach with my friends.

Then, as a parent to a five and one-year-old, serendipitously, I began to rent that same camp my aunt and uncle once owned. We rented with our young children for nine years…and it created some of the deepest and most fulfilling memories we’ll ever have.

After nine years, the new owner put the camp up for sale.

We so hoped to buy it. But at $600,000 in 2005, we couldn’t possibly. It was beyond our reach.

Sadly, we let it go. Twice in my life that camp was lost to me.

So….a disappointment at the time.

But just last week, as my husband and I returned from our summer vacation at a lake house in Rangeley, Maine, a town we’ve now visited for the last 8 years, we discussed that it was actually a blessing the little camp on Crescent Lake was sold.

If it hadn’t been, we would still be renting there today. And….we would have missed the last ten years of rentals at Kezar Lake and now Loon Lake and Mooselookmeguntic in Rangeley and Oquossoc.

Now, these past ten years have given us memories we’ll never forget.

We broadened our horizons.

And the result was a huge positive.

Losing Crescent Lake was not a bad thing…although at the time, we were filled with sadness and disappointment.

Losing Crescent Lake was the beginning of a great new adventure.

Photos: Away at a Camp in Maine, Crescent Lake, Raymond