I’m going to leave my home. Today is the day. Most likely never to return. 

I will miss playing cards at the kitchen table. Indi taught us one of her favourite games, slowly revealing her tricks and strategies, although never to the point we ever stood a chance against her. A week ago she returned to Italy, to prepare her own luggage. However, the last evening she insisted on one more game of cards, practically finishing after fifteen minutes, but drawing card after card to delay the end of the game, to insure Dad would win instead. She left the cards here for us, but we can’t play. It wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t even be fun.

I will miss sitting on this sofa, with the garden through the window, still cold these days, but rapidly awakening to the bird’s call and the first arrival of some spring sun. Dad playing his music, as he has done the past twenty years, tracks which perhaps I remember from inside the womb. Absolute peace and carelessness, cats sleeping nearby, or watching the garden through the window, just like me.

I will miss the movies, the small antique theatre in Brussels with their alternative selection, space perhaps for one hundred people. And the establishment strongly encouraging us all to bring some drinks or snacks, so that they wouldn’t have to be bothered. Afterwards in some dark café, discussing the story or imagery over a glass of the bartender’s concoction. 

I will miss the deep and rumbling belly laughs of my friends over a board game, one that continues till past midnight, when a desire for sleep slowly starts overtaking any ambition of emerging the victor. Having first had our fill with some self made pizzas, then retelling ridiculous stories filled with hilarity or impressive feats while handing around the dice.

I will miss recognising the footsteps in the hallway, or coming down the stairs, correctly guessing who is approaching merely by the rhythm and weight of their step, so sure of myself I would bet and win money on it. Or deducing who folded the laundry, by the way the socks stand stacked, and the number of closed buttons on the shirts. Or rather folding them myself, and bringin the fresh clothes to the correct bedrooms, confident with my identification of what’s whose. 

(I won’t miss the rain. Or the cold. Or some other things.)

(I’m excited to go and live in Japan)