endings

I'm packing. Lorretta is here, a witness to the end of life as I've known it. Its easier with her around. I pull out of my stupor and realize time is actually passing, and what was months is now month. one. one month to tie up all the loose ends of this life I've lived alone for so many years. 22. I counted. I don't count Bob. Why would I? B.O.B. or Blob when we were mad at him. He was a rocket scientist, and has actually gone on to rocket science. I don't remember how long or when we lived together. It went on too long. There is the suppository story, one I can't really tell except in a more secure setting. Suffice it to say I can be mean. There were men, but no live-ins. So sharing should be interesting. I am considering the things I pack, and from my best observations, accumulation is the outcome of aloneness. Not loneliness -- I still maintain they are very different things with vastly separate outcomes. I was lonely the last couple of years, but decisively and purposefully alone for all the other years. Why??? I think because I lived for too long with a man who wouldn't shut up. He talked to everybody about anything, and in the absence of an audience, I'd do. If I didn't listen, he belted me, so the incentive was there. So I have enjoyed the relative silence of my life. That is changing now, and I'm ready to talk again on a daily basis if need be. I went to a family gathering this weekend, and a work gathering. Both on the same evening. Both felt like endings. In both places I considered the distinct possibility that it would be the last time I was with those particular people. But then isn't that always the way? I don't really care. I'm outta here. I've overstayed my welcome and I'm beyond ready to go. It's funny how that is. Once my decision was made to leave, the meaning of things shifted. What I need to take with me, changed. And the realization that much of my acquisition was based on the fact that no one else got a vote. I want it: therefore it's mine. Toddler mind running the show. Want driving the bus.