I can't take my computer out with me anymore. The poor thing has to be plugged into the wall at all times, or it dies instantly. (Actually, even plugged in with the battery in, it dies whenever I let it go to sleep for too long. For the last couple months I haven't kept the battery in it.) It also makes an unnerving clicking sound.

I know it doesn't have long.

I've surrendered to the inevitable and started reading laptop reviews online to pick out a new computer. By chance, my client at the Writing and Research Center today had exactly the one I've been looking at. The only features that reviewers didn't like were the touchpad and keyboard, and I got to test those out today in person. I think I’ve made up my mind.

My computers have all been named after fictional writers– my first was Jo March, and this one is Betsy Ray. It's time to start thinking of another name that will carry on the tradition. And it's time to start saying goodbye to Betsy Ray.

Betsy, thank you for being with me through the discoveries of college life. Thank you for working long into the night as I stayed up too late finishing a paper. Thank you for helping compose everything from the group presentation where I somehow talked for forty minutes, to the first poem I'd written since high school, to my senior thesis.

Thank you for putting up with being carted over to the library when I had WRC hours there, for as long as you could take it. And carted home for every visit and break, and then back. And carted to New Jersey last month, when you were already on your last legs.

Thank you for passing on pictures and stories of what's going on in my life so my faraway family and friends can see what I'm up to.

Thank you for keeping me motivated on papers, cleaning, and the terrible chore of folding laundry by entertaining me with music.

Thank you for learning new tricks with the new programs I've discovered online and asked you to try out. You can now save everything I copy until I'm ready to paste it, instead of letting forgetful me copy over an entire paragraph. You can open a page or a program upon being told a single word. You can start a Google Now reminder for me. You've gotten much more graceful than the old screenshot routine of print screen-paste in Paint-crop-move-crop-save, now offering me the chance to select what I want a screenshot of, then taking the shot, popping it on my clipboard, and saving it, all by yourself.

Thanks for helping me find my way to online communities where I've learned to speak up.

Thanks for remaining silent during my frustrated rants when I decided to try League, rants both at teammates for being rude to me, and at you for being slow and getting me kicked from games. Your successor may handle the game better, and may witness me actually getting decent at it (I can only hope), but I appreciate your patience with a noob.

Thank you for stashing so many things that are important to me: schoolwork, writing projects old and new (and one very, very large), years' worth of journals and travel journals and pictures that capture the last three years of my life.

Thank you, Betsy Ray, for three great years. It’s time for me to move on to a new stage of life with a new computer, and it’s time for you to go into well-deserved retirement.