The morning was blustery– The wind was strong enough to force leaves across the street and into the neighbor’s porch. The sky was having an off-day. It’s normal brilliant blue was more of a solemn gray, and the sun had decided to sleep in. Contrary to the typical chirping, fresh, dewy morning that greeted me, today was dreary and humid. The Earth was taking a long time to awaken.

I looked at where I thought the sun should be– where it always was– and willed it to appear from behind the clouds. This day of all days, I needed the sun.I went back inside and got dressed. I skipped breakfast, and settled with sitting on the floor, staring mindlessly into the empty fireplace. Sooner than I wanted, it was time to leave. The moving van had been packed the night before, and was now in the driveway. Mom was squeezing a suitcase into a tight space between the love-seat and my bedframe. I walked through our newly emptied house one last time. Dad had already rolled up the sleeping bags from our rooms, and mom moved on to resetting the milk jug in the cooler. All the rooms were vacuumed and cleared out. The beige carpets and colorful walls were the only thing we left. It felt weird to have nothing in the bedrooms. It was already becoming a different house without us.

If I was a more philosophical person, I’d be thinking about today as a giant metaphor. My past life was now empty, and void of anything that had value. Except all the nicks, scratches, dents, paint, and memories that didn’t fit in the van. Today was that uncomfortable transition period, where we’re all squeezed into the truck, taking everything we could carry. Tomorrow contained nothing but uncertainty, and a clean, fresh, strange life.

But, because I’m not a very philosophical person, I decided to curl my knees up to my chest, placing my feet on the cooler in front of me in the backseat. I allowed my eyes to mimic the clouds that day, as the windshield wipers paced quickly across the window. I couldn’t think about the empty house that we drove away from. I couldn’t remember all the happy, sad, life-changing events that happened to me in that life. That old self. I had to accept, and allow the rain to wash it away.