Well, here I am. Alone in the house.

I dropped Paul off at the bus station at 6:15 a.m., and he is now en route to his new home. Already he's texted me twice; I know I'll probably hear from him multiple times today as he tends to talk to me often when he's emotional and on his own. I haven't yet cried, though I may soon. In fact, the tears are starting to trickle now. These departures are so wrenching and painful, but of course, of course, things are exactly as they should be, and I behaved with cheerful aplomb at the bus station, and now, upstairs, waiting for me is the room which is finally, after a year and a half, a room of my own again.

Tom has disappeared for a few hours: he's recently joined a local photo collective, which gives him the opportunity to use their photofinishing facility, so he's scanning negatives on their fancy machine, and I am washing towels and sheets and airing the cot mattress and pillows, and tucking some of P's left-behind things into the attic. Shortly I'll drag out the vacuum cleaner and start sucking up a year's worth of bookshelf dirt, and then slowly I'll begin moving my few sticks of furniture back into my space.

This was such a terrible year, in so many ways. But my sons are my joy and my treasure. Yes, this house is too small to hold them. But there's still a hole in my life when they're gone.