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I guess you could say I’ve been a little wordless lately, even though there are a lot of things I want to talk about. Particularly, my grandpa’s old, brown hat, two bird nests where the babies flew the coop last weekend, and an apple tree that refuses to die. 

If I can’t find my words here, inadequacy will just have to do. See, writing has always come easily when I’m sad. But when I’m happy, I find it much harder to spill my guts onto a page, and I’m about to get married, so forgive my lack of poetics––it’s just that, yes, I’m sad to say goodbye to my family, but my joy to marry the man I love is so much greater. 

If you’re reading this column on Saturday, then by now, I’ve loaded up and said goodbye to Landrum and all it holds for me. If you’re reading this on Sunday, then I’m either getting ready to slip into my white dress, I’ve already been to the altar, or I’m at my reception. If you happen to pick up this column at 4 p.m. precisely, then I’m saying my vows to both God and Austin Joyce, and the beginning of the rest of my life is unfolding. 

But let’s backtrack a little to the part where it’s two Mondays before my wedding, and I’m packing up my upstairs living space and bedroom. It took me two days to consolidate, stuff, and store everything that belongs to me into cardboard boxes (with the help of my mom). And in the span of two weeks, I’ve said goodbye to people I’m not sure I’ll ever see again. My fellow waiters and waitresses at my job? I hugged them all one last time. My best friend when I was a teenager? One last “love you” in the same place where we happened to meet. Oh, and Leroy? If you’re reading this, I love you too (but I know you already know that. You’ve known that for a long time).

I think over the past few years that I’ve been a columnist for our favorite little newspaper, I thought I was writing for an audience. This week proves otherwise; I write this column for myself, and the readers happen to be a major perk and added delight. I say that because while I was prepping for my white wedding and big move to Nashville, I didn’t write my column. But the other day while I was cramming boxes full of my things, I looked out my window and saw a baby bird standing at the edge of its parents’ nest, wings open, perhaps to fly, perhaps to prevent from falling. Isn’t that the same thing anyway? If you don’t fall, that means you’re flying? No matter––my words started finding a way back to me just then.

Right behind me sat a box that I’d labeled “childhood.” It held everything from Polaroid pictures to the bucket list I made as a kid to postcards my friend sent me from Europe. I even slipped my first Tryon Daily Bulletin press pass into it. That was the last box I taped up. That was one of the last boxes I placed in the moving truck. My words were building.

That same week, my mom had hired some landscapers to take care of some lawn work, which included instruction to tear down my grandpa’s apple tree––half had fallen during Hurricane Helene, the other half barely standing, barely alive, barely a tree at all. And by the same chance that I’d finally found the words to write this column, the apple tree was forgotten by the landscapers and will stand long enough to see me off. 

Finally, I paused and heard myself whisper, “Write the column. Now is the time. You need this.”

I appreciated that, and I appreciate that my column will run when I’m not here to see it. I know my mom will cry, and I know my dad will want to but won’t, and I know my grandma will look toward the farmhouse and feel my absence, but as my last home-written letter to you guys––just call. I’m not too far away. 

As for the nest on my porch? It is empty; the bird flew.

And she did not fall.