78/90, yes, i'm still packing

In a week from today, I need to be packed and ready to move out. In a week, at this hour, Joe and I will be pulling into our Pre-Cana session. We'll get home that night, ready for marriage, and wake up the next morning to get me ready for the move back to Ohio.

I'm looking around my room, wondering how my life will fit into the few boxes that I have. The donation pile keeps going. I wish I could say the same with the "Find Someone to Buy This" pile. I've been using my restless energy to gradually start moving things out, then rearranging them into new boxes, then finding more things I don't need and yet again rearranging things into lighter boxes.

Baby has been enjoying the process. There's more space in my room, and the circles she runs around my room–weaving between my legs, desk legs, electrical cords and chairs have gotten bigger, faster, louder. She doesn't make it through one lap without stomping her back foot, that Thumper-like action that reminds everyone: This is our territory. This is our own.

I want to take my room with me. Just cut this room off of the house and carry it home, strapped to the top of my car. I want to keep this place, for her mostly. The thought of confining her to a section of carpet, an island in the slick flooring of my parents' kitchen breaks my heart a little, and I again wonder what she'll feel when I'm forced to leave her behind.

Today, she jumped onto the bed with me, curled up next to me hair while I laid on my back reading a book. I turned to look at her. She pressed her nose against mine and left it there, letting her little puffs of air tickle my nose before laying down and trying to chew on my hair.

Now I'm at my computer and she's off in a corner, licking my suede boots. My eyes pan over to her and on their trip back to the monitor, I catch sight of the cords plugging my life in. Each of them–fan, lamp, extra strip of outlets, cell phone charger–each is wrapped in electrical tape, striped like Kingsnakes. Maybe she will fare better when she's on the safe carpet at my parents' house. Maybe, after a while, she won't even miss her first home.