This Home, Now.

Because I know each crevice and mishap of the caulking in the shower, because I know the places where mold tends to grow inside the cabinets. Because I was the one who tried for a solid two hours to find a stud and was proud to mount the television on the wall by myself to surprise you upon getting home, because I have kneed down and scrubbed the grout in the tiles with hard bristles and Comet and strict attention. This is why I am saddened to leave this home you and I have created. To remember those long weekend afternoons when I impressed you by making homemade bread, by roasting meat in the oven and presenting a meal with fixings and love and an earnest heart.

Those days we lingered before a marathon of useless shows, just because we could. And that we would drink wine in the early afternoon and that we could sit on the porch when we cared to, or not if we didn't.

It is because that bedroom houses our secrets, because the bathroom hosted early morning routines: the powder I use after a shower, our preferred brand of toothpaste, that metal comb you bought to brush through the dog's ears.

Tonight I take a sponge across our countertops for the final time. I clean out the refrigerator and I remember the food we have prepared together, the soups we have stored in the freezer.

I reach out and touch the memories. Old, new, difficult, breathless, excited, happy, lethargic, content. The walls whisper so many stories about me and you.

I close the door and make my way to the elevator for the last time. I am walking away from the home where we have made a good life to share these past 3 1/2 years. And I realize you and I and our dog are those who make this good life.  And yet, I find myself breathing heavily as the metal elevator door closes for my final trip down.