adjø
I leave Ko tomorrow. My old life is in boxes around me. I cried all day yesterday, packing. Some of the sadness was thinking about the last time I packed like this: putting Jackal's things into storage containers because I didn't want the Facilities people doing it. I didn't want Ko to touch her anymore. I don't even remember most of that, except that it was when I stopped eating for a while.

The rest of the sadness yesterday was for me. I'm leaving home. I want to be with Jackal, and I'll find a way to make a home wherever she is, but first there is this leaving to be done. I feel so lonely.

What is a home? Maybe I don't know anymore. I always thought home was the place where I could close the door and no one could come in. But that was just a dorm, and then an apartment. Then I thought home was the place with people like me, the place where I understood how things worked. That's a different kind of safety. Jackal was always a part of that, she was always going to be. Until... And now I wonder, is it more important to feel safe with a person or a place? Because I don't see how I can be at home on Ko without Jackal, and I don't see right now how I can ever feel safe in the NNA.

I'll have to start with small places and small safeties. Jackal. Scully and Solitaire. And it will be nice to see the cat again. Cats understand about place; it's what they are rooted to. But their people become part of their place. When someone goes away, a cat waits a few days and then decides that their person has been eaten by a predator. I understand that. My person was eaten by a predator too. But she came back.

How morose I've become! Gloomy, just like a proper Scandinavian. I'll be better when I can see Jackal, when I am not rootless anymore.