the past week has been boxes and packing and unpacking and this endless depressing transition, a geographical love triangle between salem and plymouth and middleboro. I've been in plymouth, unloading and arranging and trying not to lose the pets who are suddenly dependent on me, while my mother is labeling boxes "ashley and chelsea's childhood things." I helped miles and cindy unload the last truckful into their new house, I spent the night on the chelsea's floor, sleeping on my rolled-up stw sweatshirt because all the pillows have been packed.

today the rain has stopped, but it's the last day any of us will be in that house again. not that I have really lived there the past two years, but it's difficult to accept that someone else is going to live there, now. someone else is going to go sledding and get lost in the woods and sneak out of the bedroom window. and they won't remember the lilac bush or the crab apple trees. I feel like I should have carved my initials into all the trees, the base of the swingset, every panel in the closet and the floorboards of the barn. how to you say goodbye to something like this?

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ash @ 11:53 AM