I have been going through 5 years' worth of emails at work. We are finally upgrading our email system and once it happens all the old emails will be archived. Given I won't be working there much longer anyway, it seemed like a good idea to just trash them all. I started deleting whole folders but then I came to the personal folder and inside the bulk of emails were made up of ones from my husband. I couldn't click delete on them straightway, I had to have a little glance.
Captured are our meaningless conversations that mimic the spoken word but unlike speech, where the words are gone forever, these are sitting on the screen for me to review any time I like. I started to wonder why I kept them in the first place. It's the same with text message, the ones from Hubby I don't delete. It's a virtual record of our relationship. I know I will never go back and read through them again and the only text worth keeping is the first one he sent me. But then that text is etched in my mind forevermore like the first page of a great romance.
People say emails are the modern day love letters. I disagree. In real letters thought and care and attention goes into it. Email is simply verbal garbage captured in the internet ether. There is no poetic language, no declarations of love, no heartfelt sonnets. Merely snippets of conversation. Why hold onto them? An email asking my beloved to pick up milk on the way home and his reply of "Ok, love you".
However while deleting the trash in the virtual ocean of emails I pleasantly discovered a handful of gems worth treasuring. These emails are the few where one of us stood still for a moment to truly think about the other and to express that thought with carefully chosen words. It was a simple gift wrapped with a bow to be opened and read and to make the recipient smile. Reading them now makes me smile and reflect on our history. I will hang onto the select few and store them away at home to be rediscovered in another 5 years time when I am once again sorting the trash from the treasure.
I have all the messages from the beginning of our relationship saved away somewhere, when we were only really talking virtually rather than face to face because of distance. I think all those dreams and hopes recorded is kind of sweet, even though there is nothing specials there really. Mind you if I ever forget his favourite songs I can go back and check lol. These days texts are deleted without a thought, there is nothing special there, just a glimpse of daily life through words like 'will be late' (which is kind of special considering he never used to tell me, ahh training). I think it is good to keep a few special ones that made you feel loved or thought of or revealed something about your relationship, like a diary. I do miss the art of letter writing, one I used to do a lot as a kid but now, not as much as I should.
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