E-Books are a contradiction.

Reading is tactile.  I touch the pages with my hands, absorbing the atmosphere as well as the words.  Shutter Island is intense, rubbing the page corners between tense fingers; Trainspotting held wide apart as I stare down at it, confused, and try to imitate the accent as quietly as possible in an attempt to clarify its meaning.  The Book Thief is flicked through constantly as I read it, delighted, and fans the dust in the air into other people's personal bubbles.  The Beach is held firm as I attempt to ignore the constant growing hunger for the next page; Harry Potter less so as I relish the most important find of my childhood.

There is nothing to be gained from a cold hard screen.  Fiction online is never as enjoyable as you try to rest your eyes every now and again, straining; characters jump from paper pages, but simply stare wistfully at you willing to be printed out online.

I would rather carry my entire library on my shoulders than buy an E-Reader, and that library is fairly sizeable.

Sometimes, I remember important things that I'd almost forgotten about.

Today, the most important thing of all occurred to me - at least, the most important thing in my life right now.

I can't do this.

I have fifteen days left, discounting moving day, before I am officially independent.  I don't feel independent.  I'm staring at society's mother bird as she pecks me out of the nest, but I'm not quite ready to fly yet.  Even if I am, I don't feel that way.  I don't want to feel that way.  I can't leave my friends and my routine and my home.  Suddenly this house has a personality, and it's one that I can't leave behind.  It feels like a third parent, almost; a safety net with its own washing machine and tumble drier - a stocked fridge and Pepsi practically on tap.  I can't sell my beloved car.  I can't move to a place where the Tesco could be anywhere and the places I know and love are nowhere.

I can't do any of those things.  How can I be expected to abandon life as I know it in favour of a whole new world?  They all say these will be the best years of my life and that three years won't feel enough by the end of it, and I know they know better, but right now it's hard to believe that this is a beginning and not an end.  This is the end of I can.

Still, I've just remembered something important.

I want to do this.

Maybe I can't, but I want to - and I will.  Fifteen days, discounting moving day; let's tick them off instead of striking them through.  I'm going to miss you all.  Keep in touch.