This morning I cleaned out some emails from my gmail account. I didn’t get rid of many, at least not compared to how many are sitting in my inbox. My goal was to get to under 100 unread emails. Most of the unread ones are poems that are delivered daily. I succeeded in getting it down to 95.
After the dog walk, I sat at the table trying to write my daily fifty-two. I was staring out the window, but my thoughts were on all of the stuff in my life. I have a coat that’s getting ratty and worn. It has a rip near the pocket from when my leash hand was in the pocket and the dog pulled. It’s smudged around the collar. I should get rid of it soon (though it still functions as a coat). I was thinking about the bed frame in the garage. I doubt I’ll be able to afford a two-bedroom place – I don’t need the second bed. I have a lot of books I haven’t read. I should get rid of some of them too. I have a lot of “garage stuff” – things that one might need when they own a house: plumber’s putty, paint supplies, spare parts from who knows what, jars with screws, jars with bolts, etc. I’m not sure I’ll own a house any time soon (or ever again). I have a box of vases, a box of sports equipment, a box of kitchen items. I have a treadmill that is about to break. I have paintings that no longer speak to me and clothes that no longer fit.
After a few minutes, I began to think of life in terms of deletions. I’m trying to shed a few pounds. I’m in the process of transitioning out of my job and cleaning out some files. I have 2000 photos on my phone. 4000 songs. The inbox sits at 12,392 emails. Two more emails came in. Accumulation is effortless, thoughtless. If one doesn’t stay on top of it, it just happens. Curating and cleaning out takes time. Erasure is (or can be) emotional.
Later when I returned to the emails, I came across a slew of them from when I was selling my house. The mix of emotions from that time came back pretty quickly. A lot of the emails were seller feedback emails. “House is ok. Out of date and over priced.” While honest, the feedback stung a little. We had done the best we could to keep up with the house. How would you like it if I came to YOUR house and said it was out of date and not worth much? I was reminded of the many times I had to vacate the house for a showing or an open house. I was reminded the day my cat died (after an open house). I was reminded of how long the process took. I put the house on the market in June, I accepted an offer in September. I had forgotten that I put it on the market so soon after my ex-fiancee left – barely two months. I had forgotten that I put it on the market without a backup plan. I was trying to move out of the area (looking mostly in North Carolina and California) but if nothing came up, I was going to move into Philly. I deleted all of the seller’s feedback emails. At the time, I kept them just in case, and then kinda forgot about them.
I came across another batch of emails from the early days of the pandemic and my time in Memphis. I was applying to a lot of jobs. Atlanta, Memphis, Everett, WA, Palm Beach County, San Francisco, San Diego, Gilroy, Asheville, Austin, Penn State, Mesa County, CO. I was worried and starting to feel desperate. I would have been miserable at half of the places I applied.
I moved on to my draft email folder. There are three types of emails in my draft email folder: Blank emails where I started to type a name and it ended up saving a draft, ones where I started an email and never finished, and ones where the email is written out as a “give you a good piece of my mind,” but I was afraid to hit send. Of the third kind, there are a few to different exes, a few to my father, one or two to an awful boss/colleague. Generally speaking, you don’t want to end up in my draft email folder (though I’m still pretty tame). Purging the first two types of emails were easy… it was third type that proved more challenging. It was as if I didn’t want to let go of the indignation – the insult and my scathing retort. Much like the emails about the house, I was right back in the time and place of those “arguments.”
Unlike the boxes of physical stuff, I have no real reason to delete old emails. I’m not constrained by space, and it won’t cost me extra to take them with me. Which, I suppose, is why there are so many of them in the first place. But for some reason, that seems to be an easier task than going through physical objects… I’m guessing that utility and disposal add an extra layer to purging physical objects. Is this still useful, and if not, what’s the best/most responsible way to get rid of it? The coat still keeps me warm. Those wires might come in handy. Those books could be donated. How does one get rid of a treadmill?
As I attempt to move forward through life through deletions or erasures, I feel the pangs of letting go (or remembering). Seeing some emails from old friends made me sorry that we don’t speak anymore. The thought of getting rid of books that people have given me (but I probably won’t read) makes me feel like I’m disrespecting the fact that they thought of me. With all of this comes a sense of guilt or shame for not being better at letting go. Buddhists practice non-attachment (I’m not very good at that). And yet the holding on feels a little ridiculous. In the cartoons South Park and Ren and Stimpy, there are episodes where character become attached to their own feces (Mr. Hankey) and farts (Stinky). This is both a mockery of and literal interpretation of being anal-retentive. And as I delete and then delete some more I realize I may not be attached to my feces, but I do have some attachments to my shit.