In a couple of days I’ll pack up the pets and the paintings and head off for Raleigh. There’s not much to leave behind anymore, now that all our stuff is in boxes or given away, and the walls are bare and hole-y.

Still, this is all the home I’ve got. And there’s a decent chance that once the car pulls away Saturday morning, I’ll actually never set foot in this building again. If it sells (fingers crossed), we’ll likely mail the keys up here for our realtor to hand over at closing, and we’ll be down there, somewhere, doing something.

I shouldn’t say “somewhere.” I know our address, where we’re going, but I can’t really picture it. Besides, we’re just renting it anyway, and just for a year.

We’ve been here almost three. When you’ve spent that much time trying to make a place your own, and when so much has happened since the first time you walked in (like, for example, Veda’s entire life), it’s difficult to accept the process of putting it all back the way you found it.

But that’s the goal — wipe the slate back to clean. Let a potential future resident envision the house as theirs, not ours, and that means not only taking the pictures down but rolling up the rugs, unplugging the nightlights, taking down the dumb little “I’m hep” lapel pin that I’d poked into the ledge above my downstairs desk. And it all goes into cardboard boxes. Taped shut, so you’re never quite certain what all is in there, and your labels never quite suffice.

X ≠ Zero. That’s the equation I keep reminding myself of. Just because I know what I’m leaving behind doesn’t mean it’s better than what we’re moving toward. The future in North Carolina is an unknown, and my brain has a habit of equating that with nothing. Which it so obviously is not. There are fantastic, amazing, comforting, fulfilling and unforgettable things awaiting us there. We just don’t know what they are yet.

Things like the lilac bush at the bottom of the hill outside my door right now, which comes into bloom in the spring and smells so sweet and perfect that Veda and I both love to run out in the park and stick our faces right into all the branches. Like the sunset over the lake, coming in just right and warm on your face, and sparkling off a million dancing mountains on the surface if the wind is just right. Or like the kind, generous, open-armed friends I’ve made here — not many, but a few — who I’m still dreading going and saying goodbye to.

And, of course, the families. X really *does* equal zero, almost, if we’re talking about proximity to relatives. Here Mom and Katie (and Tom and Niki and Zoë) are just a couple hours down the road in Indy, and Grandma Lawson can pop over for coffee in five minutes or so. Britt drops in with very little notice, which I love. I’ve always wanted someone to do that, actually. And Veda’s favorite cousin Gianna is never so far that we can’t schedule a play date for today or later in the week, and we can all watch the two of them streak around the house like maniacs and dance together and shriek together and steal each other’s crackers.

We won’t have any of that where we’re going. (We *will,* however, be a heck of a lot closer to Grandma and Grandpa Kline, who will be right there just a Carolina away. Looking forward to that.)

So I guess we’ll have to find new goodness. And I trust that we’ll be able to; honestly I do. For one thing, the climate in North Carolina seems to be a lot like Northern Indiana’s if you delete the months between November and March, which is precisely what I think Lope has always wanted to do anyway. I’m looking forward to riding my motorcycle more often.

I’m looking forward to paddling some new lakes in the old canoe, which will be going down on top of the Pacifica with me this weekend. Looking forward to cajun food, oddly enough, which I always liked in Indy and have missed being able to get up here. Looking forward to visits from Mom. (The first one is already scheduled, which is just as reassuring as I thought it would be.) And I’m looking forward to getting to know the people I work with better.

It’ll be great. And you can’t say I haven’t taken plenty of pictures of the old place by now. And the memories don’t take up any space in the moving truck at all. Right over there, by where Penny is sitting with Noah in the puffy old chair that I hope survives the move, I remember Veda taking her first steps. Over on the other side of the room is the door I remember bringing her in through, the day we brought her home from the hospital. We stamped off the snow and hoped she was bundled tight enough and tried to get her cozy and warm.

Over there, by the stairs, I saw her smile for the first time, and it was like the sun coming out. And upstairs is where I saw Penny and Brooke doing breathing exercises, the night it was finally time to go over to KCH and have ourselves a baby.

But you’re probably noticing something as I indulge in this moment of nostalgia. What I really love about this place is actually going with me. And we’ll all be in the new place together.

And then that place, too, will be Home.