The Nevermores

Folks, I’m starting to freak out a bit here. Just a little bit. OK, quite a big bit, actually. I mean, we’re supposed to be moving a week today. TODAY. As in, this time next week, I won’t be sitting at this desk, like I normally am at this time on a Friday morning. I won’t be in this house at all. In fact, one week today I’ll have left this little house forever. FOR. EVER. And ever.

OMG.

(I mean, that’s the plan, anyway. We’ve always known this date might not happen, purely because of the time it can take for all the paperwork to go through, but as things stand, we’re still on track, and if it’s NOT next Friday, it’ll be not too long after that. We hope.)

I started the freak-out on Wednesday. Up until then, I’d honestly been fine about it all. I was excited about the move, not too stressed about the packing, strangely calm and chilled out at the prospect of walking out of the place I’ve called home for the past ten years like it ain’t no thang, and never, EVER coming back OMG.

*Aaaaaaaand breathe*

On Wednesday, though, I took the dog for a walk, just like I always do. We took our usual route, around the neighbourhood, and as I walked, it suddenly occurred to me that I would do this only a few more times, and then I’d never do it again. Well, not HERE, anyway. I will obviously still walk the dog: I’ll just be doing it in some other, yet-to-be-decided location. And this freaks me out. It was all just SO familiar, that it was inconceivable to think that it will soon just be a memory, (This goes for the house more than the street, needless to say. And yes, I know I can always come back to the street and walk around it, but once we move we won’t really have any reason to be back here, and honestly, I don’t think I’ll want to drive by the house until it no longer feels like “mine”.) and that all of these familiar things will be replaced by new and strange ones.

So I had myself a really bad attack of the “never-mores”, and it continued all the way home, up the driveway (which I will soon never walk up again), through the front door (the keys to which will soon be handed to someone else, who will not know all the times I’ve lost them, found them again, ran around the neighbourhood with them clutched in my sweaty palm, ready to poke into the eye of an attacker), into the kitchen which I will never cook in again (I… barely ever cooked in it at all, to be honest. I hate cooking. But you get my point.), and so on and so forth.

I knew this was coming. I’ve been mentally preparing myself for it ever since the house went on the market: longer, even. But oh, it’s so very, very hard.

Don’t get me wrong: I want to move. I’m really excited about the new house, and although leaving will make me sad, I know staying wouldn’t make me happy. If this deal fell through tomorrow (And hey! It still could!), I wouldn’t be thinking, “Oh, great, I’ll get to stay here for ever!” I’d be gutted. Of course I would. “What’s the alternative?” Terry asked me, months ago, when I first started to bang on about how one day I would never walk up up those stairs again, and never look out of that window, or lock myself in this bathroom and have to have Terry break down the door to bust me out. What’s the alternative?

And honestly, there really isn’t one. Oh, we could just stay, of course. But I don’t want to do that. I have a shiny new house waiting to be loved, and lived in, and filled with lots of shoes. It’s time to move on: I know that, and I’m ready for it. I just wish I could move on without actually… moving on. Or at least without that painful moment of leaving. If I could wake up tomorrow and find myself miraculously moved into the new house, without having had to walk around this one, saying my sad goodbyes, that would suit me just fine. Alternatively, if I could find some way to just switch off my emotions for the next week, that would probably work too.

In other news, I wore a nautical outfit on an actual boat. I KNOW. I have no shame whatsoever.

[Dress: By Malene Birger* | Shoes: Christian Louboutin | Hat: Target]