Four days remain before our move to France

Four days remain before our move to France.

Four days.

It feels real but it doesn’t.

I feel excited. I feel sad. Both, at the same time, in the same breath… which no one really talks about.

Yesterday I squealed with delight while looking at Google Maps, seeing that a road from Blois to a nearby priory had a bike path running alongside it. Then last night I cried myself to sleep after walking into my teen’s empty bedroom, their bed dismantled and in pieces in our living room, waiting for its new owner to pick it up. My teenager is off to college in Europe this Fall and I haven’t had time to process it. The tears that fell onto my pillow in the dark were cathartic.

This morning my mind has been full of worry, thinking of all possible scenarios that could hinder our leave: USDA paperwork not arriving on time, strong thunderstorms that are forecasted next week. A part of this would be so much easier without cats, I thought to myself, and then Oliver, my gentle black fluffball rubbed up on my leg and meowed. He, too, has been stressed with the house in disarray and strangers coming in and out, picking up and paying for various items that made our house a home.

My sister flies into Paris the day before us. She'll shop the local pet shop for litter and a scratching post before we even land, and she'll be the face waiting for us at the airport. I don't know how to describe what it does to the panic in my chest, knowing someone will be there who isn't scared of any of this.

Four days. I don't know yet what I'll feel walking onto that plane. I only know I want to remember this… the mixed emotions, Oliver, the empty room — before it becomes a story I tell instead of a thing I lived.