03.25.2003 - 3:38 p.m.

I am an email packrat.

I have emails dating back to 1999, the year I admitted email existed and that I should use it. And not just in a big long inbox list; I have folders for each person I communicate with, plus a folder for really touching, emotionally important emails.

My system is full. So I was trying to clean house, not only filing or erasing the inbox list, but also going through the old ones. I never read them, after all, so most of them should probably get thrown out. It's not like it matters.

I don't have this problem with objects. I go through my closet on a fairly regular basis, and if I haven't seen it in a year, I'm throwing it away. No remorse. But emails are words, sections of a time in my life. Temporary, unexamined truth recorded nowhere else.

For instance, the 'Tony' folder. Contains fourteen email conversations of several days' each, around 12k per thread. Topics include superstitions, chia pets, the relative value of Mountain Dew as a diet staple, and the secret love of cats. Topics laid between the lines include exes, expectations, and when he decided not to call anymore.

Or why.

Okay, so I lied, it's not true that I ignore old emails. But I suspect it's the case that I really, really should.

-stonebridge

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