“I’ll cover the lying down!” I tell the two strangers, who have just entered my bedroom assessing what needs to be moved.

“Good idea!” the tall, lanky one named Josh answers.

The outside air is heavy with the threat of a downpour.  Inside I pull a blanket over my prone body.

I hear the grunts of men hauling my china cabinet, the living room couch, the multitude of boxes, contents unmarked.  How do you define years of accumulation?  Silly really to still be holding on.  They will go to storage and be swallowed up by the black hole of Thingdom, never to be thought of again.

Afterwards, the sour smell of sweat lingering in the air, I wander into the main living area drawn by the echo of my husband’s voice.  He is now the only furnishing in the room.  The dining table stands stark, alone in its space, the kitchen counters glare emptily.

Layers of our lives have been stripped away in a mere hours.  There is more to go, but as this shell is vacated I feel a sudden pull of emotion.  Is it sorrow?  Doubt?  More a philosophical shrug:  What was it all about anyway?

The excitement has tired me and I return to my current profession:  warming my side of the bed.

Tomorrow more strangers will come, set the house up so that it is no longer recognizable as ours.  Having loaded the last essential goods into our truck, we’ll pull away, point the nose of the truck forward, and move on.