Friends are people you know. But some people are different. This is about those people. 

Somewhere over the middle of the country, sandwiched between a sunshine filled window and snoring stranger, I was brimming with excitement. With every mile that passed, my anticipation grew. Having the chance to reunite with my CLTC friends, the long flight was worth it. 

Last summer at CLTC, something happened that I still don’t know how to fully explain. I met people and within hours — not days, hours — it felt like I'd known them forever. The friendships didn’t build slowly the way they usually do. They just arrived, fully formed. Since arriving at ILTC, I’m happy to say that our friendships have remained unchanged. If anything, they grew stronger from there. 

Lugging my bags through the sliding doors of Terminal A, my shoulders ached from the weight of my backpack. As my sneakers tread against the pavement, wheels bumping over the cracks in the sidewalk, a familiar face popped into view. And then another. Until the whole room became composed of familiar faces. 

Memories began flooding in as arms wrapped me in a warm embrace. I recalled swinging in the hammocks with my friends, ice cream sandwiches melting in our hands. Another memory returned.  Jumping from the dock into the bottomless lake with our lifejackets catching us so that we don’t sink too far down. One more memory. Laying down on the grass as we looked up at the stars, tiny speckles of light that we were so sad to be leaving. Speckles of light that we didn’t get to see at home. 

At ILTC, I saw those speckles of light again. I swung in the hammocks with my friends eating ice cream sandwiches. I jumped off the dock, hands entwined with the people next to me, plunging into the water. 

But ILTC wasn’t just a rerun of CLTC. It was something new built on top of something old. I learned new things about my friends that I hadn’t known last summer, and they learned new things about me. Whether they were our dreams or fears, our friendships created a space for us to share our inner truths and quietly grow together. 

The last night crept up the way it always does, suddenly and all at once. The stars were out again, those same speckles of light, but this time nobody pointed them out. We just sat around the fire at 1am, nobody wanting to be the first to say goodnight. At 2am, we were ushered to our cabins, but everyone knew the night wasn’t over. By 4am we were back under the open sky, sleep tugging at our eyes. But we couldn’t go to sleep. Because tomorrow night, we wouldn’t be together. We watched the stars fade one by one as the sky slowly filled with the pink and orange streaks of sunrise. Realization set in quietly, not with sadness, but something more comforting. We’d done this before. We knew how to hold onto each other across the distance. Finally, as the sun broke over the horizon, we went to bed. 

I’ve been home for a month now. My duffel bag is unpacked, and the summer feels like it’s already slipping into memory. But as I sit here writing this, I find that the memories aren’t fading at all. If anything, they’re sharper than ever. The stars, the dock, the fire, the sunrise. The people. The people are special, actually, because they will never quite feel like strangers. 

That’s what ILTC gives you. Not just a summer — but people who feel like home.