Unpack, Unlock

I stared at my computer.

A little notice flashed “Please reset your password”

It was my own fault. I had forgotten to turn off the ‘change password every 90 days’ feature, and ignored the prompt last time because I couldn’t remember the old password. You might wonder why I didn’t just look up the old password in the password keeper. Well, I had moved, and my password notebook was buried somewhere in one of the many boxes in my studio apartment.

I clicked ‘forgot password,’ in the hopes I could skip the search for the book. It opened a screen with security questions.

“Where did you go to school?” how did had we answered that ? Dwight High? DDE High? I looked to the next one.

“Where did you meet your spouse?” School? Denver? Colorado? Why did we choose questions that I could answer multiple ways?

The questions weren’t helpful, and, I bet, the answers were with the book as well. I backed out of the prompts and clicked the option for a text verification. I sighed. The number featured was my old phone number.

I swiveled in the chair to gaze at the boxes behind me. I had wanted to write, or play my video game, or anything that wasn’t unpack boxes. I stared at the boxes. I had barely touched any of them since I moved two months ago.

Two months since…

I shook my head. There was no avoiding it now, I had to unpack so I could reset my password. And if I did the living room, I may as well do the rest. I stood and crossed to the kitchen boxes. I had started some of them because the kitchen is a generic room. The plates and utensils are things I bought on my own, or that we received from others.

Except those kitchen spoon rests. Those we bought together. The one with the red horse we bought from the field museum when we visited Chicago. The one with the leaves is from Maine. The sloth was mine, and you made fun of it. I think that’s what started the collection- my retaliation for the mockery which escalated to dozens of different novelty spoon rests.

I finished in the kitchen. It did feel good to have it set up properly again; no more sifting through boxes as I need things.

I went to the bathroom next. Like the kitchen, I had been living out of the boxes. Unlike the kitchen, these items were more intimate. The towel you bought me, the cologne you liked, the last of your perfume. I spritzed some of the perfume. I remembered dressing together for concerts. I’d help you with that latch you couldn’t reach and fasten your necklace. I’d always kiss your neck for good luck, then you’d spritz your perfume and I’d do my cologne.

I hadn’t smelled that scent since I moved here.

Since you were… since you went away.

The bathroom went quickly, so I turned to the living room. I was certain my password book was in one of them. This room was harder. Each box contained memory upon memory: The photos we hung on the walls of the old house; the paintings we bought from the art fairs; the trinkets which surrounded us and gave us joy.

Like the stuffed toy you won when we first met. Our friends were dating, so we were each a second wheel. I think it was a rifle game. I could barely hit a target and you ran down the whole display. I couldn’t help but smile. Two months is a long time to miss someone, and longer when remembrance means heartache.

Because remembering you meant remembering you were… not with me.

I finished the living room and could not find the book. I had hoped it was there. Because that meant it was in the bedroom boxes. I had hoped to avoid those a while longer while relishing the replacement of the living spaces: the rooms reset.

I took a deep breath and went to the bedroom.

These boxes were far more intimate. Your nightstand trinkets were there. The clay bonsai I bought you on our honeymoon, the necklaces I bought you for your birthdays, your journals. The pieces of you I couldn’t bear to part with, and the memories flowed like a river, though I tried to avoid their depths that you…

I finally found the password book. It was in the box with your journal. I looked for the computer’s password, desperate to go back those escapes.

Love4Ever

The phrase unlocked my grief, and by the boxes of memories I sat and I wept as I remembered our time together, and grieved because you died. I wept because two months ago I had to bury you and leave the life we’d built together, for one I’d shape alone. I wept for the memories of the wheat fields we passed each fall, and the golden color of your hair. I wept for the moments we shared, and we’d never share again.

When I had grieved, I returned to my computer. I entered the old password and set a new one:

Love1Again