deep in the ocean, there lies a wave for you

Sometimes the Mac will randomly decide to open Mail when I start it up, and Clark’s e-mail will load, full of Facebook invitations and Google Calendar reminders to pay his cell phone and car bills. I needed to make myself a list last night so I opened Stickies, and there were his little notes to himself about Statehood songs and Stitches and Staples ideas, including one called “Reba older” that he never told me about.

I have a bunch of old journals, too, that we somehow ended up sharing because he’d write whatever ideas came to him on whatever paper he could find. One page my handwriting, the next page his. Our resumes are still in a folder on the desktop that he titled “Clark and Reba’s Resume’s.” Soon the clothes I have will lose the scent of our old apartment. One blue shirt went unwashed since the last time he wore it — if I breathe it in too many times, will the smell go away? Am I allotted a certain number of whiffs before it’s gone? It’s like a scene from a movie when I hold it to my face and inhale, it seems so cliched, but that’s really the way it is.

Is he more physically gone than he already is if I delete or hide these things? But what do I get out of keeping them besides the intensifying of this horrible ache?