Day 2807 - You've Got Mail

Hello everyone,

So it's about 3 in the morning, and I can't sleep.  And because I can't sleep, I've spent the last few hours updating my computer.  I installed a new operating system, rearranged folders, synced my calendars, and started transitioning from my CSU email account to Gmail.

I've set the emails to automatically forward from the old account to the new one--so they are slowly trickling in every few seconds.  This means that I've spent the past two hours or so just watching them come in, one by one, as though they are being sent right now by computers that are just processing things far too late.  And I must say, it's a strange feeling seeing messages come through from old professors, and coworkers, and classmates about subjects that I've for the most part forgotten--seemingly allowing me to relive the past few years of my life in fast-forward.

In high school I would spend almost every weeknight sitting in front the computer hitting the refresh button on my email over and over again.  High school me would hit the refresh and wait for some sort of message, any message really, as I watched the tiny hourglass icon spin around.  I really have no idea why I did that.  It seems silly now, as I don't think I ever really got many emails.  But there was something therapeutic about the act of hitting refresh, like I was searching for something, waiting for something.  But looking back, I can't help but wonder what it was that I was waiting for.

Tonight, I received over 3000 emails from my old address.  Some were from coworkers looking to get shifts covered.  Others were from professors sending out announcements or syllabi.  There were stories from writing group and fiction workshops, emails from close friends and forgotten acquaintances.  There were emails that said basically nothing the first time that I read them, but mean a lot now.  When I got my first email from Mike (detailing the iBox lost and found policy), I never would have thought he'd be my future roommate.  When James and I first emailed our lease for the Edwards house, I had no idea that the sprinkler system would explode in the winter or that our living room would become one of my all-time favorite places.  If only I could talk to Freshmen Year Jim and tell him all the things that he had on the horizon.   

It's funny to see how much of my life I've put into email.  Even when I didn't know it.  These seemingly insignificant fragments of text have plotted the course of my jobs, my writing, my friendships.  I still can't explain the pride that I felt receiving the email announcing the birth of my nephew, Malcom, or the emptiness that I felt after the email that announced the death of my granddad.

It's incredible to me how much a person can say to another person, even when they aren't trying to.  Even in a medium that seems so adroit at saying nothing particularly significant, I can find a way to immerse myself in the ridiculously varied layers of meaning that compose life.  I find myself analyzing the smallest correspondences, wishing that I could predict what the words will mean five years from now.  Searching for that one sentence that will sum up this time in my life, this particular experience.     

How apt then, that I should be here at four in the morning, once again hitting "refresh."

love always,
-jim.

P.S. The new email is james.e.taggart@gmail.com.  Send me something that will make for a good read in five years.