23rd September 2011

Tomorrow I leave for university. My room is packed into boxes now and it doesn't look like my room anymore. It looks like a storage unit with curtains. The walls are bare, the shelves are empty, and there's a rectangle of paint where my corkboard used to hang. It looks like a wound the room hasn't healed from yet.

Everything that made it mine is inside cardboard, labelled in marker pen that Mum insisted on. She says I'll forget what's in them and she's probably right! She's always right about the things I don't want to admit.

Mum has been strange all week. Not strange just hovering but she keeps finding reasons to come into my room. She brings tea I didn't ask for, asks if I've packed my winter coat - three times so far - and stands in the doorway. Says things like "Have you got enough socks?" I think she’s trying to memorise the room before I leave, as well as memorising me in it for when I’m gone. I love her much it makes my chest tight. My throat does that thing where you know you could cry if you let yourself, but you don't because you've got packing to do. Crying takes time you haven't scheduled.

Mum made soup tonight, the proper one. The onion-and-thyme one from Saturday mornings. The one that makes the kitchen smell like everything is okay. We ate at the table, just the two of us because Dad had to work. She didn't say anything about tomorrow. She talked about the neighbour’s cat that has learned to open the side gate now and its treating the neighbourhood like a kingdom. She talked about a book she’s reading. She says it's fine but not as good as the one. That's her review of books. She talked about everything that wasn't the fact that her daughter is leaving.

I wanted to say something about how the kitchen will be the most important room and her soup is the reason I know what home feels like. I'm afraid I'll go away and become someone who forgets to call, and to notice the steam on the windows. I forget that some things matter more than whatever I'm going to spend the three years learning. I wanted to tell her that I know she worries. Her worrying isn't annoying; it's just the constant proof of love I've ever received.

I didn't say any of that. I had seconds instead. When I was doing the washing up she stood next to me, dried the bowls slowly, as that's how she says the things she can't say loud. By being close and useful and quiet. Then she said, "You'll forget to call. It's okay. Just don't forget to eat " Then she went upstairs. I heard her close her bedroom door. I think she was crying. I didn't go up. Sometimes the kindest thing is to let someone feel what they're feeling. Without making them perform it for an audience. I learned that from her.

I packed the last box, and the notebook went on top. Not inside. I don't want it buried under jumpers and textbooks. I want it where I can reach it. Where it can breathe. It's the thing that goes with me that doesn't need unpacking.

Mae texted: "Don't forget me." I texted back: "Impossible." I meant it completely. The way you mean things at eighteen. When the world hasn't shown you yet how things you swore you'd never forget end up folded into the back of a drawer you stop opening.

Biscuit is lying on my bed. On top of the dressing gown, I'm supposed to pack. I'm not going to move him. He can have it. He doesn't know I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm not going to explain it to him. He'll just look at me with his eyes. I'll lose it entirely.

Dad came home late. He stood in my doorway. Said, "You'll be brilliant." Then softer, "Come home whenever you need to." Then he picked up Biscuit. Carried him downstairs. That was unnecessary. Also, exactly the kind of fathering that ruins you with its gentleness.

Tomorrow I'm going to get in the car. Mum will drive. She'll have the radio on loud. That's what she does when she doesn't want to think. I'll watch the houses get smaller in the mirror. Then bigger again as new ones take their place. At some point the road will stop being the road home. It will start being the road else. That will be fine. It will be an adventure. It will be the beginning of whatever I'm going to be.

I cried in the car on the way. I should write that down now. Because I'll pretend later that I didn't. This notebook is for truth. Not performance.

The window is open. September is pretending to be summer. One last time. For my benefit. The soup smell has crept all the way. Biscuit is snoring downstairs on my dressing gown. Mums light is still on, under her door.

Okay. Here we go.