JUST DO IT. How hard can it be? Just turn off the computer and pull the plug already! My mind yells at me as I take inventory of the last few boxes full of random things like bottles of half-empty nail polish, tanning cream, mis-matched socks, leftover lightbulbs, dusty cat toys and shirts I no longer wear because I forgot I even had them.

I’m at that point where I’ve begun taking those GIANT black garbage bags and filling them with stuff. The really, REALLY random stuff that I won’t even waste the words to mention. Except for those words… The ones I just typed…

Anyway, the house is empty. And for some strange reason it looks smaller than it did when it was filled with all my worldly possessions. Why is that? My footsteps echo through the vacant rooms and nail marks dot the expansive blank walls where my favorite things once hung. How could it possibly feel smaller when everything is gone?

Tomorrow I will start a brand new chapter as I officially move into my “new home” with my future husband and am surrounded by all of that “stuff” that made this place feel bigger. Somehow I suspect it will have the opposite effect in my new space…

Ahhhh the joy of stepping over and around boxes and digging through stacks of cardboard and Rubbermaid trying to find that sweater that I MUST have to wear with those jeans and so on. Searching with grave desperation for my favorite travel mug… sappy rom-com DVD… or the book in which I had 10 more pages left to read.

But it will all be worth it when I can—after two years of hour-long phone conversations every night, Skype marathons and seeing one another every other weekend—finally lay down on our couch and drift off to sleep, knowing that “goodbye” is a word no longer in our vocabulary.