I will miss my porch when I move. I miss sitting on the glider on the weekends with Shawn, drinking coffee and reading. I miss lying on the steps in the middle of the hot autumn nights talking to Paul. I will miss just being there, watching life go by. I will miss walking around the corner of the house and seeing my things – my candelabra mounted on the wall, my wind chime, my pirate comic on the door – and knowing I’m home. I was worried when I moved here – especially after the break up – that this would never feel like my home, that it would always be his. There are still traces of him here – I lie in bed and watch the mobile and remember him fixing it for me when I thought it was ruined – I try to rearrange the furniture and remember stacking all his books on the floor the night we built the Babbitt’s bookcases – and so many more intimate things I don’t want to remember but sometimes flash in my head like a movie I can’t stop – but this is my home. Everything about it feels like mine, and while I’ve been so unhappy (for a variety of reasons) and cramped, I will miss it. But that’s a long ways off.

I’ve started to really like the idea of having a dog. I think it’s the weather that does it – the weather and my parents’ insanely ridiculous puppy. On a side note, she apparently is doing well in obedience school, though the blind and deaf dog did better at the “come” command today.

My small brother turned nine today. Nine. I can’t believe it. We had a conversation on the phone this afternoon. It’s so strange.