Earthly Comforts

I know it may sound silly but, I miss our stuff.

Obviously I miss Alec, too. But I got really attached to all the stuff we had decorated our first place with. I miss our used couch; our scratched up Ikea table and chairs; our sagging spring mattress with no headboard. I miss our slightly mis-matched dishes, and our helluva bargain computer. And not just because I'm in an empty apartment right now.

I was probably too young to feel the same way the first time my parents moved as a child. But I remember a similar feeling of attachment to some of the homes I shared with my Dad over the years. I'll probably feel the same way when we leave Okinawa, as by then it will be the single place we've shared the longest. But for now, I'm left missing not only my husband but the trappings of my life with him.

As I haul armload after armload of things down to the dumpster, or Goodwill, or friends and neighbors, I am saying goodbye to the few things that were left in this place of the life we had here together for a year.

There is, thankfully, a not inconsiderable amount of peace in knowing that soon we will be together again very soon, starting a new life -- or more correctly, continuing and growing in the one we have -- in a new place that will become "ours" for a while.