The rabbit has been in every box I've packed since we were eighteen. Flannel ears worn thin, one button eye missing. She handed it to me at the ferry terminal, said, "He's yours now."
I keep her boarding pass from that day folded in my wallet. The ink is smudged from rain and years. Sometimes I take it out just to trace the date.
Last week I watched the season finale of our show alone. I paused it halfway through, reached for the phone, and remembered she's nine time zones away now.
The rabbit sits on my nightstand. I don't sleep with it, but I can't put it in a box either. It's not the rabbit I'm holding onto. It's the girl who pressed it into my hands and told me to be brave.
This morning I opened the closet and saw the moving boxes. I took the rabbit and held it for a long time. Then I placed it gently in a donation bag. Some child needs a flannel-eared friend more than I need a ghost.
The boarding pass stays. But the rabbit can go. Letting go, I think, is learning which things are the vessel and which are the voyage.