Moving On

It's strange, attempting to leave as few traces of myself in this apartment as I possibly can. I will inevitably fail, and not just because there's a smell I can't identify. No, it's more that, much as with every person I have ever met, I change them in some fashion. Many, it happens in an imperceptible fashion, some, more deeply. Here, I have lived for a year. If nothing more than skin flakes, or my scent, or the holes in the wall where I nailed a white board, part of me remains (and no, I don't feel like spackling).

I know this is the rule for nature, that you leave it as you found it. Problem is, you can't always remove yourself. You're part of the environment. We all come from the earth, just as we all return to the earth. To attempt to disappear is just impossible. We are tangible, we are real, we are more than what just ghosts. Impossible to be forgotten. Even the homeless people we pass on the street, when they disappear, someone knows about them, they leave a mark. Even just a stain, it's still a mark.

Yet, here I am, scrubbing away, burning candles, trying to evanesce, because I must. Household ninja. Know that I would not do this, if I did not have to. But in four days, it will be complete, and I will have disappeared from here, moved on to a different place. A better place? Blue heaven only knows.

***

So, I didn't quite work things out, and will be living out of the office for a bit. I've rented out a storage space, crammed as many of my boxes and bags in there as I can, locked it up, and now I've just kept some essentials, which I've now ensconced in my office.

It'll be interesting. How long can I possibly live out of a place of work before someone notices, and tells me to leave? I don't know, but if I have to, I'll just go to a Motel 6.

Here's the tentative plan for the next four to six weeks. Shower in the gym across the way lets me keep myself somehwat clean. There are only so many clothes one person can wear, which I've hidden in my desk, and a few cardboard boxes around my office. I'll just keep small supplies of food in my office and the fridge. Probably also leave for a few hours after work, then return later at night, once most everyone has left. Then, since I normally get to work pretty early, no one will notice when I roll out of the office in yesterday's clothes.

I think the worst part of all this is that I'm forgetting something very important, but don't know what that is. As usual in my life, when I do remember, it'll be too late to make a difference. Wish me luck. I'm now an itinerant worker.