starting small - day 1: water beasties






May 28th, 2017 - This is the first day of a 40 day challenge: some pictures and words each day. Come back soon to see more posts!

~~~

The last day of school is exhilarating. This is a universally appreciated fact, and this year, finishing my first year of college, I found it to be very true. The exhilaration was amplified when I entered a summer for the first time without "leftover school" (typical situation for a lazy and procrastinating homeschooler.) When classes were over (and for the first time for me, REALLY over) I could have floated away in ecstasy. 

Academic study is an enormous part of my life, one that I absolutely love and treasure, but with the last final exam concluded, suitcases ready to be packed, and an airplane ticket scheduled for the following day, my heart couldn’t help but sing in its freedom. 

My class must have been feeling the same as I. That night we grabbed our bathing suits and some bug-spray, piling into the few dilapidated and rickety ‘freshman-owned’ vehicles. A quick stop at Whole Foods where we scurried like ants after the best picnic crumbs. And then … the lake! 

We didn’t bother with the pretension of adults and refused to tarry long on the beach. Outer layers were stripped in the blink of an eye, and we streaked down the slope to the peer and into the water. 

There was a giant wooden float that could be detached from the bank. It held about 15 people at a time. But there were never that many on the float at once as the once students, now crazed water beasties, struggled to fling each other into the lake and claim the float as each’s own.

The game lasted nearly an hour. Those who didn’t play sat on the peer, dribbling toes in the water and munching on sushi (or other such college student provender.) The quiet of the lake was punctuated by the happy cries of friends... friends who had together claimed the title of ‘rising sophomores.’ 

 As the sun sank, we rose up the slope and back to the benches where clothes and towels and beach bags had been left. More conversation and then back to the cars. Each student traveled back to campus that night with a renewed brightness of eye, a smirk of bliss … and a prayer in the heart that the car would make it home. 

One year down. One battle won. One milestone reached. And together, we celebrate. Such things have been achieved. Such things are to be achieved. ... That is the joy in the end of the school year. 

Cheers, my friends! 

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