I just packed up my library

I filled 18 liquor store boxes with books. And now I'm feeling rather raw and hollow.

One year and 11 months ago I moved into this apartment. I thought it would be home. It was home for 1 year and 11 months. I am sitting at the kitchen table. My perch they called it-the place I most liked to be in the apartment. I'd sit here with my books and my laptop (because you never know when you might need to look something up online) and people would come through to make dinner or grab a snack or on their way out to the porch or laundry. This way I could sit by myself and read, but still be part of the flow of the apartment.

Now I've got to leave. I think of all the stupid things we bought-together or separately for our apartment. The TV makes me sad. I'm sad I'll no longer own a cool flat screen TV. I don't want a cool flat screen TV-I wanted one for Sean to have-for us to have for the few occasions we actually watched something on TV together. A small part of me admits I wanted it so that the guests would be impressed that we had a nice flat screen TV. But there'd be no point in me taking it since I don't watch TV and don't plan on having guests to impress. Also, now that I think about it, one of the best TV moments this house has had was watching the polls come in for the 2008 elections and we watched that on Dan's CRT TV and the lack of cool-flat-screen bothered us not at all.

The kitchen counter came from my office two moves ago. It's a hideous mottled purple. My boss brought me, it and a circular saw to cut it down to size back here in 2004. I will miss it. I will of course also miss the bananas painted on the kitchen floor. I was sure that one day we'd have a party and someone would bring an old friend who'd come in to the kitchen and say something like "Holy Shit! My buddy painted this floor in 1980!" Now I will miss that revelation, if it ever happens. The kitchen table and chairs came from my ex roommate/landlady (rented out rooms in her condo) She was going to get (or had got) a new set and she gave them to Sean in exchange for fixing the shower head. So they are also old friends. I bought cushions for them on one of our first attempts to buy a mattress from Ikea. The one I favor has an extra-soft cushion I bought just a days before he dumped me. Amazing. At that time he was still looking for things that "we" needed to buy from Ikea (although not very hard-we were both doing our best *not* to buy more than we needed.)

I am strangely reminded of a song from Les Misérables. Marius is lamenting the loss of his friends in the student uprising. He sings "From the table in the corner they could see the world reborn..." I just think of what these pieces of furniture have seen of me and how I will miss being in this place that has them. The only other move that has felt this bad was leaving college. Even leaving France, while miserable (Goodbye my existence on another continent and goodbye to the language I spoke so fluently) didn't hurt quite as bad as this does.

Sean has done righteous cleaning to scrub away former occupants of this apartment. And will he do that to scrub me away too. Probably.

I know there are worse crosses to bear than being dumped/divorced. I know at least three people who are in worse situations. The lady whose wonderful husband (and friend of all of ours) Irving has just died. My cousin, who is 16 and has just discovered that the only way to heal the ulcer on her eye is to get a cornea transplant. My other roommate, who's facing assault and battery charges because he had junkie roommates.

But its still making me miserable. I wake up in the morning and my brain reminds me of a few things I have to do today and then, oh-by the way you're dumped/evicted. Like this morning "You've still got a cold. You've got a meeting with X today to talk about backups and you need to prepare a spreadsheet for Y and, by the way Sean has cast you out."

There are just no words for how shitty this feels. And how much I will miss all of this. Dysfunctional this household and this relationship both were, but they were a comfort to me. Like Katisha I wonder "where shall I find another?"