you can't take it with you

_{Mazatlan pinholes, Ri Anderson}

My kitchen table is gone, as is the coffee table, the sideboard and soon someone is coming to grab my supremely out-of-date stereo. The house is cold and emptying fast. I feel like those little bits of sand left in the hour glass. Every day a part of me disappears. I call up friends and it's as if I am writing my last will and testament. You'll take this chair right? My butterfly palm I bequeath to you. These records? Enjoy them. Everyone gets a little sumthin'. A little piece of little ol' me.

Time, my friends, is running out. And the cold hard truth of the matter is that I am not ready. Well, a part of me is. I mean, letting go? It gets easier and easier the more you do it. I understand how people do this over and over. Pack up and move. Leave it all behind. Search for something new, some thing else, some thing better than what's in front of them. But part of me just ain't. Ready. I like it here. It's not a bad place to be, after all. And really, who can bear to say goodbye? I can't. And so, I imagine, I won't. How do you say goodbye to a place that has become home? A place where you make sense? A place that fits like the best worn t-shirt of the last two decades?

I came here straight outta high-school. My parents drove me up. And then, they dropped me off. I was ready. I never went back. I never looked back. It wasn't until the last coupla years, the thought even occurred to me. There were flirtations with other cities. There were extended vacations. There was study abroad and temporary employment elsewhere. But mis cosas, the important ones, always stayed here. The difference is I always knew I was coming back. It's not that I'm scared. I usually land on my feet. It's not that I don't like surprises. And it's not that I'm moving some place I don't know. It's just a moment of mourning. A beautiful agony. A little bit of death.