I’ve been trying to clean out my email account, after I realized I have mail dating back to 2004 in there. Most of it can go, since there’s no need to have emails that old in my account. I had some time to do so this morning and it was interesting to watch old emails come and go. You can basically plot my life of the last 6 years through email subject lines.
For a long time, I was getting emails from a secular humanist listserv. That, obviously was in my atheistic time. In early 2005, a receipt for Discount Catholic Store popped up – and again at the end of the summer. I had just finished my oil field job, and came back knowing that I had to become Catholic. I also found the reply about proper excommunication from the Lutherans (I really wanted to be sure they knew of my conversion, ha).
An email sent to a then-boyfriend stating the Catholic Church’s position on marriage to non-Catholics. He was curious, after I told him I was converting to Catholicism. When we broke up, he denied he had ever asked about that. Whoops.
The emails from the secular humanist listserv stopped coming at the end of 2005.
Emails from classmates who no longer talk to me – we definitely have grown apart for a variety of reasons. I giggled when I saw the old Facebook friend request from the most angry person I’ve ever met in my life. I hope he’s not as angry as he was.
Plenty of earthquake notices from the United States Geologic Survey which I still get – some things never change; except the format that USGS uses.
There are notices that I maxed out my credit card and my failed attempts (with my friends) on trying to set up a budget.
The first email in my account is a receipt from NewEgg.com. I think I bought RAM.
Not too long after I was received into the Church, a bunch of E-bay saved searches come up – Shorter Christian Prayer, The Book of Concord, Christian Prayer: The Liturgy of the Hours.
That’s about as far as I’ve made it today – so somewhere in mid-2006. It’s a big nostalgic going through and seeing names and wondering “what happened to So and So, I hope they’re doing well.” Part of me wants to contact some people but I think it’s wise to let the past stay in the past; and simply pray for them now.
I had a similar experience recently when I finally sat down and sorted all my paperwork. I thought it was a couple of boxes of bank statements and maybe a few letters – turns out it was a paper trail of the last 12 years of my life. Especially nice/surreal was finding some letters from an ex-boyfriend when he was travelling in Asia.
It was a different life