Dry Erase Pen on the Door

This is it. The last time I'll sleep in this house. I've never really known it that well, as I've mostly been in Boston and in the Bay Area since my parents moved in five years ago--but there's still a lot that's happened here for me.

I watched the 2000 Election, witnessed 9/11, rooted for the Clippers. The neighbor and I once had a serious disagreement about shrimp. Mike, Steve, Sheldon and I gave birth to a board game in the bedroom. Misty bit a magazine salesman at the front door, and years later died in the kitchen. And, of course, much more. It's odd, though: a lot of the things I remember about this place are the places I left it to, from great trips to grad school.

I didn't get to say goodbye to my Cambridge apartment. It was rented to a new tenant while I was in Taiwan finishing my thesis (which was not on Taiwan.) Perhaps better that way: a clean break, free of seeing the shelves empty, the boxes piled up.

Inevitably, a lot of things turned up in the process of packing. Among them, my sophomore year roommate's missing keys (sorry, Sasha), a CASIO check I forgot to deposit (henceforth a high-opportunity-cost souvenir, not unlike my CASIO experience overall), and my tenth grade journalism ID (I had poofy hair.)