Yesterday the IT person here at work deleted the entire list of my personal contacts from my computer. They weren’t on the network so they were irretrievable. Gone for good. Dooced. Six years of collected phone numbers and addresses: distant family, old girlfriends, close friends who have moved away, christmas card crap, long forgotten email addresses, everything. No more. Funny thing is, I’m really not too pissed about it. Something inside me says I should be mad, but I’m not. I guess I feel like if it was someone I haven’t talked to in years, well then, it’s probably not that important to talk to them again. Or is it? Some of the more essential info, important people, I have in other places. And somehow, for reasons that don’t have a logic behind them, I feel like I’m getting a little bit of a clean slate. Just a little. Maybe it’s just one broad swipe with a big, spongy, eraser on this messy chalkboard of mine. But in some way it actually feels good. To some extent it’s relieving, Somewhere a load has been lifted.
i had a hard drive failure on my desktop computer a few years back. that crash taught me the lesson of keeping back-ups, as i lost the equivelant of what you lost. it’s kinda like a fire. it’s all gone at once. you’re pissed, you grieve, then you start over again. and you know, there was a gig of crap on that drive that i thought i couldn’t do without. i think there’s been maybe two things in all this time since that i’ve missed. 🙂
I wish someone would accidentally erase a bunch of crap in my apartment that I think I need.
I totally agree that there’s a reason this happened. If you are meant to keep in touch with these people, you (or they) will find a way. Look at it as a squeaky clean new beginning.
it’s funny how once they’re gone you really don’t miss them. after I moved, I left most everything in boxes labeled well for my own reasons… anyway, I have yet to need anything in them… maybe i’ll have a garage sale and sell each box $20 for mystery box… lol…
here’s to a clean slate!
I’ll take 2 of those mystery boxes.
P – i hear ya, i haven’t missed a thing yet.
erin – sometimes i wish i can erase people.
h – you really might have something with those mytery boxes, yoiu’ve already got three orders.
About every two-three years, I change my phone number. It allows me to thin the herd to those who really matter.
Now if I could just do the same with the physical clutter that I’ve amassed…