#shai bocarsly if you're out there i miss you so hecking much aaaaaa | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

smile-files · 4 years ago

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heya folks

gonna write a long post about the nicest person i know who i’ll probably never see again :’[

it’s an interesting story, but i wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to take the time to read it. do what you’d like!

it was after 7th grade just ended; i wasn’t in the best place emotionally, things kinda sucked. i was excited for camp, however, something i always looked forward to. i got placed in a bunk and stuff, of which there were 4; i was happy with the counselors, too (their names were ariel and jared). i was kinda bummed that one of my favorite counselors, named eli, wasn’t working there as a counselor anymore - he still worked at the camp, but whatever position he had i didn’t see him around as much.

at camp i would carry around a drawing notebook and a fanny pack, in which i had pens, pencils, the like. i soon noticed that another counselor, named shai, had a fanny pack; no, we didn’t ‘bond’ over it or whatever, but that’s one thing that made him grab my attention.

my camp is a ramah camp, which is a jewish camp; one of the activities that we’d have were a kind of elective we’d sign up for, called ‘shiur’ (literally means work), which integrated jewish learning with some activity - sometimes it’d be calligraphy, or pokemon, or super heroes. during first session i chose the pokemon shiur. normally, during the shiur period, counselors would go off and have a meeting. but, for some reason, shai would always hang out near where we’d have our pokemon shiur. i knew, of course, that this was because of julian.

i don’t know a specific reason why, but camp ramah tends to have a good number of autistic kids going there; some of them have a specific ‘caretaker’ of sorts who are with them to make sure they’re okay. my sister had one, my friend abby, and julian - shai tended to be with him and made sure he was okay. (something i find fascinating about julian was how he loved drawing road maps and signage)

it just so happened that julian picked the same shiur as me both sessions -pokemon in first and super heroes in second - so shai tended to be around. in this way i got to get to know him.

he noted my art on several occasions - he said that i’d be good at doing henna considering how frequently i’d draw on the back of my hand; when making the banners for color war, he said he’d abduct me so i could do the banner for his team (no abducting ever occurred, lol)

shai is a very funny person - i don’t know his mbti type, but i’m dead set on him being an nf. he was nice to be around, and i keep describing him as ‘supportive’; no wonder why, considering the circumstances of most of second session.

near the end of each session, we would have an overnight trip we’d go on (for two nights, three days). on the first trip, shai unfortunately wasn’t able to come for whatever reason. it was still a fun trip, but i still missed him.

come second session, however, and things would be different - shai was able to come with us on our trip to baltimore! i ended up sitting in the back of the coach bus, and shai was sitting across from me. something i noted is that he’s one to ask ‘you okay?’ a lot. and i mean a lot.

on the first day of the trip, we went to the national aquarium, got caught in a downpour, and watched an orioles vs yankees baseball game in the rain. we arrived at the synagogue we were staying in and went to bed; i got my typical 7 hours of sleep.

the next day we went to six flags! i chose the slow group because i’m a wimp. i had been wearing my galaxy hoodie at the time; when we stopped to have lunch, shai seemed concerned about me. woop

we went back into six flags after lunch; at one point we went on some raft ride type thing, and we were sitting on a bench in the sun to dry off (we’d gotten drenched). i was still wearing my hoodie (which, i may note, is rather thick). eventually shai’s group came around and they sat next to us on the bench.

shai checked the temperature on his phone, which was 90 degrees farenheit, so he said that i should probably take off my hoodie; i was only convinced after the “do it for me” thing that people do that just sells it. note: after his group left i put the hoodie back on lmao, now that’s a story i tell a lot (along with the story of eli having gone illegally ziplining with jesus)

that night, for whatever reason, i slept terribly. i fell asleep at 10:40 and woke up 48 minutes later, at 11:28. i was left sitting in the dark, super bored; i watched counselors walk in and out of the room, i counted to 1000, i went to the bathroom to sing to myself, i looked out the window. either way i had to wait 8 hours for everyone else to get up.

by this time this was the last day on the trip, and we were going to go to an elderly home. we packed up our stuff, something i did quickly. i then kind of wandered aimlessly around the room, waiting for everyone else to finish. this prompted another ‘you okay?’ from the shaister.

i managed to nap on the bus, but only for half an hour. we eventually got to the place; we were going to talk to them, give them ceramic gifts that people had apparently made, and that one kid who can play any song on the piano by ear just went off.

you may know that i’m a rather shy person; this, for whatever reason, felt like any party i’d ever been to - isolated and very anxious. there were a number of girls who said they were scared, but they weren’t shy - they were just scared of old people or something. shai convinced them that old people are not scary, then came to console me; he noted that people used the pun of “shy” and “shai” sounding similar on him a lot, but now he could actually use that himself. he didn’t pressure me to do anything i didn’t want to, and even suggested going outside if i really felt uncomfortable. i probably should’ve gone outside, but i didn’t. eventually we all went outside anyway to have rita’s ices, but i didn’t want any.

i’m pretty sure that’s all the trip stuff, but there’s more afterward. there are some stupid inconsequential things that i just find kind of amusing, to say the least. for one thing, there were these tacky plastic champagne glasses that the counselors had for whatever reason; there was this show going on, and everyone was bored out of their minds. shai just gave me one of these stupid glasses with no context, for the lulz or whatever. my response was to draw a smiley face on it with sharpie and give it back. he found this rather amusing.

one day i brought this shark plushie to camp, whom i called ‘smore’ because he looked like a marshmallow. shai insisted it was a piranha just to annoy the heck out of us, an argument that lasted two days.

another thing, one of the counselors was going to be leaving for israel before camp ended, so we had this whole thing where basically you could give a shoutout to anybody and thank them; i decided to thank the counselors in general, as most teenagers wouldn’t tolerate leading around a bunch of loud middle schoolers; shai knew i was a rather shy person, so he said that it was a very good thing of mine to do.

my age group was actually an amalgamation of several age groups - rising 6th graders, rising 7th graders, and rising 8th graders. being in the latter group, i was going to take part in some stupid graduation. and, you see, we all had to write speeches for it.

i wrote a speech, whatever, which mostly consisted of thanking counselors (in general i get along better with figures of authority, eg. counselors or teachers or whatever rather than fellow kids). i was very worried about the whole ordeal, but i did it; afterwards shai said he was proud of me for giving my speech despite how anxious i was about it.

and note how i never outright told the guy how anxious i was about any of these things - he’s just the type of person who knows; i always value people like that, given how i never tell anyone anything :’]

when it came to the last day of camp, i wanted to make sure shai knew how thankful i was for everything he did for me. i didn’t know a single other person who was half as validating and supportive of me as he was. but, being me, i couldn’t just tell him. no, i had to make a hand out of pipe cleaners, write a card, fold it up and make it look like an ice cream cone, put the folded card into the hand, and then awkwardly give it to him.

he initially said he’d read it later; but soon enough he read it and then i got a shai hug. yea!

welp everything after camp sucked! before school started i was so worried how i’d cope with my dumb issues without shai being there; i came to miss him a ton. like really, a ton.

before that summer, i had camp dreams like, heck, maybe once or twice a year?

but since that summer of 2019, i’ve had ~15+ camp dreams. i really missed him. i longed for the support he’d give me when i was anxious, for the knowledge that somebody understood me. i eventually started having headaches a lot, so i came to ‘think’, “oh! he’s trying to telepathically talk to me!”

i never did believe that to be the case, but imagining that i could talk to shai was comforting. every day i’d talk into my hand, telling him how my day went, asking him about his, and sometimes singing him a song or something. this came to be a normal thing i did routinely. i would get worried when i didn’t get headaches for a while, as i perceived those as him ‘responding’, so i would think i did something wrong.

i would frequently worry about if i’d ever see him again - i had no way of knowing if he’d be a counselor at camp this year. then covid-19 came and i knew he couldn’t. at some points it really bothered me how much my mental health revolved around this person who i knew for around 2 months and who i’ll probably never see again.

as of now, i still do miss him. i still had camp dreams. i literally had one last night, where i saw shai and was trying to call out to him, but he didn’t hear me. i still do ‘talk’ to him, but it’s not like i think i’m actually speaking to him. but heck, if it’s comforting to me, there’s no reason not to.

but really, shai seems more like a figment of my imagination now. it’s been a year since i’ve last seen him. was he ever real?

i would draw him sometimes, imagine what it’d be like to talk to him again. how i wish i could talk to him again.

there are so many silly little things i remember about shai - his poofy hair, his aviator sunglasses, how his fanny pack had writing on it in red sharpie and had multiple sunscreens in it, how he almost got hit by a cookie...

shai is the nicest person i’ve ever known, and it’s a shame that i’ll probably never see him again. he’s the kind of person i want to be - i want to be able to understand people and cheer them up when they’re upset. i want to have poofy hair and call people ‘bud’ unironically...

oh to be you, shai...

(oh wait, i know he exists because apparently you can find his channel on youtube and his pfp is his face... the only thing on it is one comment saying “thanks for subscribing” lmao :’])

if any of you know who i’m talking about, or think you do, please tell me!! :’0

thanks broskis *sob*

#ramble #long post #shai bocarsly if you're out there i miss you so hecking much aaaaaa #wait i already had that tag?#oh #when the heck did i use it before?#:']

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