Leaving: Part One

Yesterday was so brutal. The packing. The disposal of unwanted items that, for whatever unknown reason, you've kept neatly tucked in a drawer, a closet, behind the door. Dividing belongings between storage and temporary life at my parents' house. But the worst part was the leaving. I'm quite sure that the impact of it will come to me slowly. That the next week will be the subsequent parts of leaving that I need or want to express. But today, there is just the first part, the iconic part, the length of time no more than five minutes long that was everything.

It is time to go. The apartment is empty, just like it was the first day that I saw it and fell in love with it and begged my landlord to let me put a deposit down even though she wanted me to think about it over the weekend. I walk through and say goodbye to the porch. Goodbye to the bathroom and bedroom and living room. And then I go to the kitchen window, the one with the big sill that I sat in and talked on the phone, or thought, or dreamed or cried, or simply stared out into the darkness of night and lost myself. I put my hands on the glass and curl my fingers around one of the cross bars of the frame. And I lean my head against the pane and I cry. Slowly, it becomes a sob - the heart-wrenching, gasping, from the bottom up sob. It is loud and painful. My mother puts one arm around my waist, and I sense that it is both to comfort and to support. I am coming loose. Then in one breath, I stop for a moment and say, "Okay." I step away from the glass, turn and walk from the kitchen.

As I reach for the door of the apartment, I turn one last time to look. I see myself in the gilt mantle mirror - face red, eyes swollen beyond recognition, my nose a bright cherry under the brim of my cap, and I say, "Goodbye" and I leave.