Four, Three, Two, One...

Time has been transformed, and we have changed;

it has advanced and set us in motion;

it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.

-Kahlil Gibran

I overheard my father in the next room, letting the copy of "The Rum Diary" fall to my lap when he said it. "Yeah, she's moving out in about 10 days." It's actually 11 days-however, this is the closest estimation he has ever made (example-he would introduce me as his 16 year old daughter when I was 13, etc.). Maybe he's counting his days until freedom again, to finally be the only one in the house. Maybe he'll even miss me a little. Maybe he's just planning his next adventure, solo and wild.

It seems like everything about life is the next day, the next month, or anything besides the present tense. I calculate how many days it will be until my brother and my boyfriend are back in Illinois and away from the strange spices and concrete shower stalls of their base in Afghanistan. A girl at work counts her wedding in August with every personalized ribbon she orders and every shoe she debates. Another measures her belly in the mirror, thinking towards fall when there will be one more life to fill her house. There's the numerous expectations of the beginning and the end of college life. Others look at the calendar for their birthdays, retirements, anniversaries, and Florida vacations spent on a beach. Today is not enough.

Moving so soon, when it had felt like it would never come, is something that has been worrying me. I hadn't been able to put my finger on it. The excitement is there, but with a smooth film of contemplation covering it. The truth is, I think about him there. I hate the thought of being there without him, but I'm a little scared of when he is finally home with me. Everything happened so sweetly but so suddenly, I am afraid that it won't be real to him somehow. I hope that I can give him that contentment, that peace and rest, that unspoken grace that fills a home. But just as much, I hope he won't forget that he loves me.

I want him to pull up to the curb and honk. I want to catch my breath, and run down the stairs before I know what is happening. I want him to look in my eyes and remember the middle of March like it were yesterday...flashes of memories in a small town, of that first kiss, of the night spent awake talking about the life we'll have in a little while.

And until then, I want him to count the seconds like I do.