black construction paper, tasteless cookies, and invisible AC

It wasn’t a good summer. Whenever I mention it, everyone I’m talking to assumes that I’m referring to the things that went wrong, not the things that changed who I am for the better. And I usually am.
The summer itself seemed cooler from inside the dark room in which we worked, windows covered with black construction paper so passing campers couldn’t see what we were doing. It made it seem more mysterious, as though we were doing something that was top secret, that if someone else was able to get a glimpse of us, the game would be up. To be honest, if the campers had caught a glimpse they probably would have thought we were counselors on break and tried to give us cookies. It happened once, when the paper was peeling off the corners, and the kids didn’t know any better. I don’t remember if the cookies were good or not, but I do remember us saying that we enjoyed them, and I don’t remember lying.

So maybe I do remember.

Every summer before then, I remember feeling as though the sun was constantly beating down on me, as though the heat was smothering me and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop the boredom that came with it. It pressed down so thick that it felt like another person in every room, stoping me from finding anything with which I could alleviate my boredom. It wasn’t like that that summer.
The black paper did the opposite of what my long sleeved black t-shirts from childhood had done, and kept the room cool, or maybe that was the AC that always seems to be running in my memories of that room.
I feel bad saying that I enjoyed that room, and that I don’t feel bad thinking back on it. Hopefully the people who I’m talking to stopped reading when they assumed that this would be another mention of what went wrong, assuming that my trauma, my memories, are the same as theirs.
It did go wrong. I can’t think of only the good, of only the black construction paper, tasteless cookies, and invisible AC. But I can’t only think of the rest either.