She's Leaving Home

2 days. I'm sitting here with my knees up to my chin, whimpering & rocking back and forth while stuffing my tear-stained face with lemon blueberry scones and cranberry orange muffins that Dayanita so lovingly made for me. I'm a sight to behold. A few minutes before this ridiculous display of my lack of composure, my sister beckoned me downstairs because I had a package in the mail. From upstairs I could see that it certainly wasn't my dumb Naturalizer shoes that had come in the wrong size the first time around, but it was a beautiful turquoise colored box. "What is it?" I asked. She read the inscription on the note and I laughed, because it was one of those inside things, you know. But surprisingly it wasn't what was in the package that I loved, but in the note. My sister had sat down with me to see what it was, but as I was reading, she left and came back into the room and found me beside myself with tears.

"What happened?" She was actually concerned.
"Nothing, nothing happened. This is just . . . so nice."

I hate "nice." I mean, the word. Not the sentiment behind it. But I was so at a loss for words that that was all that I could say. I'm overwhelmed and I just want to be there already, if I'm going to leave at all, because saying goodbye is so, so hard.

I feel like a little girl who doesn't want to go to school in the morning and just jumps back in bed to hide underneath the covers because she's scared. I remember hiding behind my mother's legs and gripping my chubby fingers around her calves for dear life the first day of kindergarten. I cried when she walked out that door. My little 5-year-old brain must have felt that she was leaving me forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.