Two months

It's early morning, and I'm sitting here with tea and Pete on my lap. As you can see. I'm looking around at our emptying house.

Thinking about the spaces where things used to live. Thinking about the things given refugee status while we make this heady change.

Pete tries to eat my drawstring, and I am immediately thinking about Pete, and the new house, and how he will thrill with the new lawn and bushes and garden to explore.

Last night, Patrick and I drove a loaded F-150 all the way out to the house and back before dinner. It was unexpectedly pleasant to catch up with each others' days from opposite sides of the bench seat while hurtling down I-88. The closer we get, the more I can't wait.

This is what I'm going to miss most about our old house. Not the huge porches, or the huge master bedroom closet, or the leaded glass windows. I'm going to miss this built-in. I want to build something just like it in Gilbertsville, and then cover it with seventy coats of paint so it looks a hundred years old.

But Gilbertsville is going to be its own thing, different from Binghamton. I can't take the built-in with us.

And I'm grateful, so grateful for this change.

Pete is too, but he has no idea.

Two months until move-in. We're getting ready.