The various cardboard boxes around the house were instructive for my state of mind:

This end up ^.

I had only lived in the apartment two weeks and I was still packed and often woke up in the morning unsure where I was. In many ways I was a snow globe, upside down. Confused as to why I was here, where I would work what the year would bring. I had not so much gone to this place as come from the old, the before. I had put it in my rearview mirror at 6:24 a.m. and headed North.

So now I was here and would attempt to start a new civilization for myself- Selfania, I guess. I would meet new people, try new things and redefine myself. Where I had been before did really matter to people I did not know and I could color my future and my past in whatever pastels were nearby.

It was fall, there was in a chill in the air, and that was enough. After four summers that never brought the temperature below seventy, it was terrific. One morning I woke to a bright sun and the thermostat showing a surprised 62. It did feel a little cold.

As days went by I bought furniture, found a job, picked some eating places and started walking myself into a routine. Deliberately or not I kept one box in a corner to set the TV on. It was still there a year later when she came into my life, and it was her who commented on it's presence-

"You going somewhere?"

Nope, I said, just not unpacked yet.

You oughta get a table and stay a while.

I did and she did as well.

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