Mom i leave on Tuesday
The backpack is halfway done. I still need to borrow socks (with no holes, if possible) from dad and take over of a few hair products from mom. Done, reviewed, and sealed, now all that's left is to wait until departure time. To pass the time, I take a walk in the garden - it's one of the few places where I see changes, where the passage of time leaves its mark. Because otherwise, everything will remain just as I left it-. I store many memories there, each one better than the last. I find myself observing a sandbox located at the back of the house, near a hammock tied between two trees. When I was a little kid, I used to spend entire afternoons in that sandbox; I would build sandcastles, walk barefoot on it, and grab it tightly with my hands to let it slip through my fingers. Perhaps that's where my love for the beach originated. To this day, the bodies of two dogs I had in my childhood and adolescence are buried in that sandbox. Bloody hell, how I loved them and how I still love them. What fault will they have in anything, in anything bad that happens to them. I open the closet again to see if there's any clothing left for me to take. When I open that closet again, it will be a treasure trove of memories. All that clothing won't feel like mine; it will belong to that boy who left one day and left it there. How difficult it is to live with what i used to be and with those garments full of memories. I find no remedy for it, nor do I even pretend to look for one.
Yesterday, on Monday, I said goodbye to the people I had to. Only my grandparents are left; I promised to visit them before boarding the train. I'm about to go downstairs to bid farewell as if it were the last time I'll see them. Knowing that when I return later, they won't be here physically. ‘Cause i do not know a shit. What do I know about life, about how much time will pass, and what is yet to come. Because everything is lived and felt better when you think it could be the last time for everything. She implores me to stay, asking why I'm leaving on my own, so far from everything. He reaffirms that I'm doing the right thing by leaving, that there's no future for me here.
I leave my father cuddling the reason why he recently became a grandfather. A couple of pats on the shoulder and a 'see you soon' are enough to show affection. This Tuesday has Sunday vibes. The little dog wags her tail slowly from side to side, cautiously. She spent the whole morning looking at me with special attention, with a sparkle in her eyes that I had rarely seen in her. She, with the airs of indifference she displays at home and being so much like a dog, seemed to care about my existence that morning. It's as if she was making sure of what was happening. Maybe I was the one particularly attentive to how the dog looked at me that day.
The time has come, because it always does. Believe me when I say that no one never quite gets used to this business of farewells and all that it entails. The rest is a backpack half-filled, a quiet journey, and a story to tell.