Packing for College

Stuff on her floor, 

on her spare bed, 

on the hallway floor, 

stuff filling the corner of the basement, 

piles piled on her desk, 

in my room, 

in her sisters' room;

we're moving Norah out and into college. 

We're emptying her room altogether so that her younger sister can move into it once she is gone. 

It seems unfair and impractical to shut her room up like some mausoleum for her memory and continue making her younger sisters share the other room when she'll be gone most of the year.

So there's a lot of decisions to make.

We're packing the stuff to take, 

putting other stuff in storage in the attic, 

passing clothes down to younger siblings, 

donating stuff we're done with, 

throwing stuff out. 

It's exhausting work, 

and I knew it would be, 

so I set aside four days for this endeavor, 

clearing the calendar of everything else. 

It'll take every minute.