An ending and a beginning

On Monday I finished my last exam and after saying goodbye to many of my classmates who were leaving, I sat in the car and stared at the road as we drove home. There was nothing to say; I was completely emotionally and physically and mentally exhausted. Suddenly all the momentum that I had been carried on; all the adrenaline and nerves and coffee and coke and motivation and prayer, all of it came crashing down and I was exhausted. I’m positive that if I’d heard at that moment that I actually had one more test to write, I probably couldn’t have done it. I felt completely empty.
In fact I was almost done in on Saturday night. We had a graduation ceremony for the students finishing their basic sciences and I danced my heart out for a couple of hours but then by 10:30 I stumbled to the car and fell asleep on the way home, barely managing to drag myself in to bed. It was too much.
But for some reason there is always a resurrection. Just when you think you can’t possibly go on, somehow God gives a little more strength.
On Monday after our last test we packed up our beach stuff and went to Pineapple beach for the afternoon; myself, Miriam, Burton, Jill, Vem and Dr. Gilbert.
The beach was hot and bare. We sunk our feet into the white sand and retreated under a sun umbrella and slathered on sunscreen. The water was clear as glass, even where it lapped at the shore, and we struggled into our snorkel equipment and paddled out towards a reef.
I’ve just been introduced to snorkeling this time in Antigua, at the pressure of my parents who told me if I tried it once I’d be hooked for life. They were right.
The coral reefs are like an underwater garden. It is as if a whole new world to explore has been opened up. There are long purple corals that extend like fingers reaching to the sun. Round brain corals, dark orange spiny sea urchins, waving green grass, giant pink conch shells, and fish! Millions and millions of fish. Schools of little silver ones, black ones with turquoise spots, large flat silver ones, tiny neon blue and yellow ones, long orange ones with bulging eyes and spiny tails, black and yellow clown fish......... Burton and Miriam and I swam through the reefs, the waves sloshing us against each other and the coral, and under our goofy looking masks we were all exhilarated. It felt as if we were the first people to step on the moon, or the first pioneer to stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

We took turns taking off our breathing apparatus and diving down off the edge of the reef, looking out into the mysterious unknown that as far as the eye could see was full of fish and plants and wonders. I felt like I was swimming through a national geographic magazine. There really are no words to describe it. We swam through schools of little fish that nipped at us and every now and again would see some amazing creature (like a turquoise and blue striped fish or a giant one that looked like he wanted to eat me) and we'd point it out wildly to whoever was closest to us.

We snorkeled for ages and then swam back through the long grass and the coral to shore, and lay on the beach, exhausted. I watched the fronds of a palm tree above me waving in the breeze and tasted salt in my mouth and the thick white sand all over my feet. Above me there was a tree with pale pink flowers that kept dropping from the branches. I watched them float down as if they were appearing out of the sky and drift gently down all around me.

"He leads me beside quiet waters; he makes me lie down in green pastures. He restores my soul."