"The more I can postpone death by telling pointless tales, the better--for me."

Dear Brooklyn,

I'm trying to get out the door. The last three days have been filled with sadness and weeping and wishing for this to be easier, wishing to know more about what I am leaving for, what I am moving toward, wishing to be someone who can pack and go, someone who can change her life without it being some kind of disaster, some kind of crisis, but--it seems like that will never be the case. It seems like something in me just cannot handle certain difficulties, including things that, for other people, are insignificant, barely noticeable. And here I am, sprawled and weeping, paralyzed with loneliness and fear and wanting to be saved and knowing that wanting to be saved is how I might lose everything I care about.

JRoss and Cooper are on their way to Chicago. Lyra and I are in Meghan and Christy's bedroom, Lyra hiding under the bed, me getting snot all over the pillowcase I'm not going to have time to wash before I go. Not that I am in any kind of shape to do the laundry/dish-washing/tub-scrubbing/dog-hair-vacuuming I'd planned to do, even if there were time. Which I can add to the list of things that should not break me or anyone and yet break me and in breaking me, act as proof that what I am trying to do is impossible, that my limitations are unbearable--that I cannot bear them and that I cannot ask others to help me bear them; they cannot be alleviated.

To get out the door I need to pack the things I've left to the last minute--some of Lyra's toys and treats, my toiletries, my dry laundry that's been sitting in the dryer since Friday, the few food items I'm taking, my plants. I need to take out the trash and wash the dishes. I need to sweep up some dog hair and make the bed and wipe down the surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom. I need to eat something and walk Lyra. I need to leave a note for Christy and Meghan. I need to dig some kind of music situation out of the back of my packed-to-the-brim car. (Well, JRoss's car.) I need to not hold myself accountable for all the ways in which I wish I were different--that I wish I'd organized this summer better and was not doing this part alone, that I'd organized my stuff better and was not bringing a whole house worth of stuff up to Vermont, only to have to bring it all over creation in the next two months in order to get it to where I'll end up. Though it's impossible to believe I'll end up where I'd hoped to.

Brooklyn, I wish I could leave in some other state--that I could celebrate you and thank you and love you and depart full of joy and hope and excitement and enthusiasm. I will close my eyes for a minute, rest. And then I will leave in whatever way I can leave, I will take the steps I can take and I will be on my way somewhere.