I just emptied my personal e-mail box completely for the first time since 2017. Yes, it was stuffed with nine years of e-mails -- well, not every e-mail I received, of course. At first there were a few from friends that I saved to reread when I was feeling blue. They weren't much, but served as proof that I actually had friends. I also saved the not so nice ones, the kind with digs, veiled insults, and unkind remarks that hurt me. It took me a long time back then to end relationships with bullies and toxic people, and I would pour over those nasty e-mails, usually thinking I was reading into it too much because hey, they were my friends, right? At least, that's what they kept telling me.
After Mom died, the blinders finally fell off, and I saw people for who they were, not for who I hoped they were. That's when I began cutting ties with the not so nice folks.
I was aware that I should have gone through all my saved e-mails and just let them be marked read. Instead, I marked them as unread and ignored them. I let them sit for about three years just gathering virtual dust while I stewed over what to do. I've been slowly learning how to deal with this sort of thing, and recently I found inspiration that helped. I decided to read the saved e-mails again, all of them, one last time. The happy now seemed a little sad. I was so willing to settle for the tiniest crumb of friendship. The not so nice ones just seemed pathetic, too. How terrible it must be, to use such tactics to hurt someone who cares about you just to feel better about yourself. I'll never understand the reasons for that. They were never my friends.
Anyway, they're all read and put to rest. I am not sorry that I held onto them for so long. Nor do I regret finally letting them go. I feel like I just spring cleaned my heart.
Image credit: Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.
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