And the heavens opened up...

It's 3:05pm. I'm 10 minutes early, and I've finished my last final. Well, it's only 10 minutes. I'll do a last flip through my answers to make sure I answered everything.

3:15pm. The TA still isn't here yet. What gives?

3:18pm. About 4 other people around me are packing up and leaving. I figure I'm not going to wait any more, just turn it in and leave. We enter the elevator, about 4 other people talking at the top of their voices about how questions 1 2 and 3 were so similar. It's a small elevator guys, don't need to yell. Then again I guess 3 hours of repressed silence needs to be let out somehow.

We meet the TA as we exit the elevator, and he says take care and have a good break. You too! Amidst the chatter, we step outside and immediately I realize something feels different. The air smells the same, the sun looks just as bright, but something's different. I guess this is what freedom feels like. You never notice the cloudy burden you've let settle around you until it's gone.

Seriously, things feel different. I walk back with a slightly slower step than 3 hours ago when I walked to my last final. I look up and the sky - 3 hours before perfectly blue and completely cloudless - is now littered with smatterings of cloud, blown about by the wind of God's breath. Light streaks of white here, a little dash of it there, and voila! A beautiful cloudless blue sky made even more beautiful by the Artist who paints with the wind and colors with the sun. 2 planes landing at San Francisco airport pass by as I look up.

This is what Freedom feels like. The world is suddenly my oyster. I can go anywhere now, be in any place, do anything, be with anyone. The invisible walls have been lifted - I couldn't see them before, but I can feel that they're gone. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. This is only a taste, like the tiny sample of chocolate ice cream you get before the real thing, the large enough to make you love it but not enough to satisfy.

Well, I'm going to enjoy it while it's here. Mexico, here I come!