I did this eighteen and a half weeks ago.
I drove to the airport and sat in the backseat and held on tight. So tight I thought I would never be able to let go. I said goodbye, I cried more than I should have, and I drove back home, this time in the front seat with the sting of my mother’s pitying gaze on the side of my face. I cried more. And then I counted. I started with seventeen, which was the number of weeks I had to wait, and in the meanwhile I was happy a lot of times and I was sad just as much, but always I had a number in the back of my head and all I wanted was for that number to be zero, and finally, finally, it was, and it stayed that way for a week, and now I have a brand new number: twenty-two. I’ve already done the driving, and the crying (even though that’s still happening, but by now it’s more of a steady leak than anything else), and I held on tight like I would never let go, and I let go, and I drove back with nothing to hold on to, and I grasped at the air.
And now I’m starting from twenty-two and it will be just the same. I’ll be happy and sad and angry and anxious but no matter what I will always have a number in the back of my head. And I hate that it’s so big but at least it’s there. At least I have a deadline, right?
