Lurking in the Depths | A Personal Email Challenge

My gmail account is 5 years old, and I have a full 5 years of emails residing in corners and folders and nooks of this particular email account.

So for some unbeknownst reason, I decided to start sifting through the remainder of my youth. Yes that is how I look at it.

I’ve been reading through many of the “eliminate your inbox” articles over at 43 folders, and considered starting to work through this, as I have upwards of 300 emails in my inbox.

I rarely delete things. Well that isn’t entirely true. I delete junk mail. I delete things that do not require replies, or printing out. Everything else I keep (because who knows, I might need that inspirational quote someday?!).

When I first starting the gmail account, I created folders to help reduce the number of emails sitting in my inbox. Because I tended to be a wondering gypsy, I created folders for the various places I’d lived. I.E. Friends from Burnaby, friends from Kamloops, and friends from Chilliwack (not including correspondence from family members in various provinces – they had a file of their very own).

These thoughtful emails (both sending and receiving) were then labelled and archived into their respective folders, and never really looked at again.

Until I started reading them today.

Now, I’m not sure if reading your own emails counts as literature, but my oh my could I get lost down that rabbit hole.

There is something about reading something I’ve written, years ago, that just intrigues me. I think that it is this love of self-reflection and consideration that I continue to write a blog even today – because it means that someday, somewhere in the future, I will be able to read my thoughts from the past. I think it’s somewhat magical. What you chose to publish or send to a friend is (usually) so much more proper, or thought out, than the ramblings that you jot down in a journal.

Sentences and thoughts are more developed, and delivered in an easier way to read years down the road.

So today I’m considering. I’m considering the friends I used to be close with, and I even replied to a few that I haven’t talked to in nearly 3 years. I’m considering how to adapt my carefree teen mentality into my twenty something years.

And I’m considering what the heck to do with 5 years worth of emails that I can’t bring myself to delete?!

They all seem like too much of a part of me, explaining my feelings and thoughts as I was going through the various life events that have made me who I am today. The loves, the break-ups, the spiritual breakdowns and revelations, the friendships formed, the excitement, the freedom of studying from 10am – 10pm and enjoying it, my love for finding tiny corners of campus to call my own, the free spiritedness, the nature walks, my parents repeatedly calling me a gypsy, the memories, the ridiculous memories (I can’t believe I spent 3 hours taking public transit from SFU to UBC to meet a guy).

I deleted a few as I went through them all, I suppose it will just have to be a process thing, only letting go of a few little snippets of memories at a time.

Its just too hard to let go of everything all at once.