freedom and rest

i feel like a giddy six-year-old, just finishing her first year of school , experiencing her first summer break... i feel like a bird set free from a cage.. i feel like a little like a three-toed sloth...
I have finally finished my year, and thus my time, at UMass-Boston. The last component was my recital on Monday. It was quite the learning experience, to say the least. How did it go? you ask. Well, I played okay. I am my own worst critic, however, so I must also say that my audience of family members, friends and classmates enjoyed it. That's a good thing. And now it is done, I am done, and I am feeling blissfully lazy (see three-toed sloth). To do list: eat, sleep, read, chip away at the huge cake my parents bought for the reception after the recital. That was fun - tons of food, people from all different parts of my life. I spent the hour or so going around making sure I chatted with everybody and introducing this person and that - "being presidential", as someone said.
Graduation isn't until Friday, June 3, with Honors Convocation two days before. So by the beginning of June, the close of this chapter will feel official. And then I'll be ready to head out West... kind of. I'm planning different ways to say goodbye to all these people who are dear to me. I hope these lame attempts to say how much "I love..." and "I'll miss..." will be understood and appreciated, seeing as they are coming from someone who doesn't say these things nearly enough. And just yesterday, I found myself wondering, again, why am I not only leaving everyone I know, but also going somewhere I know no one? Sure, it was the Montana trip that made this seem possible for me, and yet now I ask myself and God "Wouldn't it be safer to stay here or go back there?" Then I think of Narnia and Aslan and the response to Susan when she asked if the great Lion was safe.
"Safe? said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King..."
It follows, doesn't it, that life in the midst of His hands will be a wild adventure, never easy, but good? So, in the coming days, I will attempt to be human again - from cheetah to sloth to human, what a week! I must restore order to the trash heap my room has become, get a summer job and earn some serious cash, call people I haven't spoken to in months, and take time to smell the roses and such. And, last but not least, I have the privilege of getting ready to "Go West, young [wo]man!"
...speaking of lame...