Schuylkill House is empty. The walls are bare, the floors are empty, the rooms are exactly as they stood over two years ago when we hiked down Schuylkill Road to see what was to become our new house.

I've spent the past four days cleaning and packing and moving almost nonstop. My body aches, I'm running on very little sleep, I feel emotionally wrung out.

Wednesday night, Amanda, Sarah (a wonderful person who didn't live in our house but is ten kinds of amazing) and I spent all evening and night sorting, cleaning, putting things into boxes, running things to Goodwill, scrubbing, vacuuming, scrubbing harder, making "ew ew ew" noises over some grungy, hard-to-reach places that had developed their own ecosystems, dividing up the remaining food, sweeping, sanding, carrying furniture out to the curb, hauling away insane amounts of garbage, packing boxes...

I was panicking (what, me? No, never!) about what was going to happen to the furniture when a man in a red pickup truck stopped and asked if we were giving away everything on the curb.

"Yes! Take it! Please!" I said.

He was really excited. He was moving into a new house with his fiance, he explained, and they needed furniture. He told me he was going to grad school. I asked him where.

"Frostburg."

"Oh my gosh, that's so cool! My dad went to Frostburg. What are you studying?"

"Art education."

"Oh wow! I studied art in college myself."

"I was an art history major, but I love it so much. I actually interned for Christo and Jeanne-Claude."

My jaw dropped.

"You... interned... for Christo and Jeanne-Claude?"

He grinned. "Yup. I actually helped install The Gates in New York."

At a loss for words, I threw my hands up in the air and grinned.

"Thanks so much for all of this. Can I give you any money for it?"

"If you have twenty bucks, I can get a pizza for dinner."

He pulled out his wallet, fished around for a few bills, and handed them to me. "Here's forty. Thank you so much."

So it worked out! He took one of the entertainment centers and the kitchen table, and we ordered pizza (Papa John's, thin crust, chicken and pineapple with that garlic butter for dipping).

We continued to move furniture outside, and people came and took things, which was good. We then had to do "runs" to people's apartments - one to Drew's, one to Amanda's, and then instead of going to Sarah's, she stayed overnight with me.

The last night in Schuylkill House.

We pushed the air mattress into the middle of the living room and slept, and I imagined that we were floating on a raft in the middle of an ocean, and I dreamed that a giant squid drifted beneath our bodies.

When we woke up, I drove Sarah to her apartment and then came back to finish up. I drove everything of mine and Drew's back to his place, then scrubbed and swept and vacuumed and dragged the old lawnmower to the curb, all the while saying to myself,

"It's just a house. It's just a house. It's just a house."

I went from room to room, closing off the doors when they were clean. My voice echoed. I'd never seen any place look so empty. I put the cleaning products away. I took the vacuum and attachments to the closet and attached a note.

"This vacuum was my mother's in her first apartment. It was mine in my first house. And now... it's yours."

I was so tired. Everything hurt. I tried not to cry. I did, but just a little. I'm getting better.

"It's just a house. It's just a house."

I closed the front door and locked it. The welcome mat was crooked, so I straightened it.

I put my key in the landlord's mailbox. I got into my car and I drove away.

I didn't look back. I'm kind of proud about that.



I went to work. My coworkers both commented on how subdued and sad I seemed. I was cheered up considerably, though, by happy text messages from friends and also two adorable toddlers who came in with their moms. I played peekaboo with them until my arms were tired.

After work, I drove over to Sarah's. She fed me falafel, Neal came over, and we all hung out - until I passed out on the couch for two hours. I woke up long enough to say hi to Lauren and Erin, and then went to sleep on the futon until early this morning.

I got up, showered, and left. I went to Whole Foods and bought pineapple and soy milk and sat in the cafe and watched the shoppers with babies meander through the crusty breads and soft cheeses and dark bottles of wine.

Afterwards, I drove through the neighborhoods behind Tenleytown with the music off and the windows rolled down. It smelled delicious - like spring into summer. Like college. Or something. And now I'm here, in the computer lab, getting all of my internet-type stuff done before I go off and run a bunch of errands.

I'm sitting here chatting with Amanda, and we're talking about the house, and she just pointed out that, over the last two years, 13 people have lived in that house. 13 people who have called that place home, even for just a little while.

It was just a house. But you know what? It was mine. No, scratch that. It was ours. And it was the best thing that it could have been.