I once didn’t delete an email and that saved me thousands.
My senior year of college at Eastern Kentucky University was a stressful, awful time. The whole of 2010, really, was the weirdest my life had ever been at that point. This was the fall semester, my final one, and the year had started poorly.
But that might be an understatement. And for as terrible as the winter and spring of 2010 were, the summer was joyous, with me getting deep in touch with my creativity by writing an 80,000 word non-fiction manuscript and having a pair of friends come visit and stay with me on campus. I was a resident assistant for a few years at EKU and spent one summer working there instead of going home. It was some of the most fun I can remember having.
Regardless, graduation was coming up and I was once again falling apart at the seams. 2010 was following a pattern. The reason for my bad start to the year reared its head once again and I was forced to finally confront it one way or another. Add the stress of college, it coming to an end and the realization that my life was about to start was more than I could bear.
At least more than I could bear alone.
There was a mental health place on campus that welcomed students free-of-charge, probably paid for by tuition, and it offered individual and group therapies. I went in and had my interview after swallowing my pride and any preconceived notions of what therapy meant for a person. I aired my grievances and stresses and eventually volunteered myself into a group therapy. I figured that would be the best for me.
I loved those people. They taught me a lot. They were from all sorts of places, not just geographically, but emotionally. The freshman had trouble finding her niche and fitting in. One guy had trouble coming to grips with his sexuality. Another had family issues that was giving her trouble at school. And another had problems with a lover.
I felt like I didn’t belong. Like I was being selfish. My problem was nothing compared to theirs. They had real, tangible issues. Mine was just a complete lack of confidence. I had given up and lost all hope that I would ever be a successful writer. Successful period. Here I was, just a few months from graduating with a degree that should have, by all accounts, proven that I was a good writer, but I just didn’t feel it.
On top of that, one professor had recently encouraged us not to pursue English when going for our masters and instead said choose something you could “get a job with.”
I felt betrayed at that statement.
-Why didn’t you tell us that at the start of this semester? Heck, why isn’t that mentioned at orientation? To not pursue your interests?
While I didn’t say that, it still weighed heavily on my mind. Honestly, it crushed me. I couldn’t sleep. Plus, I still wasn’t over the year’s start. I wasn’t sure I ever would be.
We met weekly for five weeks and shared our struggles and progress. I don’t remember their names, but I remember their faces. And at the end of it, I remember one of the therapists, as everyone was saying their goodbyes just before we split for Thanksgiving break, saying something that really stuck with me.
-I hope your hand aches from all the book signings you’ll have.
This was years ago. It still resonates within me today.
Regardless, the problems facing my future were not done. Though I had regained confidence in myself, I still had a few other hurdles.
I received some mail that stated I hadn’t met my foreign language requirements, despite taking two years of German and passing those classes. Though maybe not with exceedingly high marks, I did get credit. They said I was a class short though, but that couldn’t be right. What class were they saying didn’t count? I know I took enough. I was going to have to take another semester after I already had to take another semester if I didn’t get this straightened out. All for a foreign language requirement! I majored in English.
As it turned out, my German film course wasn’t being counted by the registrar for whatever reason. My German professor, one day before class, announced that he was retiring and German wouldn’t be available. We’d need to take either another foreign language or a German film course. The latter sounded really, really fun. And it was. We got watch and analyze German films, some of which were really good. Specifically, I’d recommend Das Leben Der Anderen, or, The Lives of Others.
But I remember asking my professor via email if he was certain such a class would count or if I had misheard him. He assured it would work. And I knew I still had that email tucked away somewhere. That was my ticket to graduating. I knew it was.
It was easy enough to locate it and when I did, I both forwarded it to the registrar’s office and printed out a hardcopy and marched it up there. Though it didn’t count in their books, they allowed it to count for me because I wouldn’t have taken that course otherwise if it hadn’t fulfilled that requirement.
This is all just a long way of saying, and showing, that I save emails. There’s so much digital space that there’s no point in really deleting anything from it. And sometimes it’s fun to go to the end of the inbox and see what’s in there. See what was sent to you when emails were the main form of online communication.
There were so many things from before I was me. Happy and sad emails. Ones with pictures. Some with videos. Some affectionate, others more sullen.
It wasn’t very long ago that I opened my inbox and started searching for myself as the sender. I wondered if I had kept certain emails. And of course, I had. Before I left college, I emailed myself the writings that I thought were worth holding onto while I could still hold onto them.
Old writings and essays, stories and poems, thoughts and ideas from my younger days. It was like a wordy time capsule.
A lot of it was bad. Objectively bad, I think. And it made me feel bad to read what I once thought were good writings. But if it’s bad to me now, then that means I’ve improved as a writer, right?
I’ve always felt that way. Even when it came to journalism. Reading some of my earlier, when-I-first-just-got-started articles makes my skin crawl. But I’m able to point out what’s wrong with them. And I could do that with my older writings from college too.
But some of them were still pretty good. And that threw me for a loop. Obviously they needed some touching up, but had I really improved much since then? Or was I capable of some decent stuff back when I thought I wasn’t?
I don’t know. It can’t be all for nothing though, I’ve turned writing into a career after all.
Reading my old stories though, I remembered them. I remembered writing them. I remembered sitting in front of my laptop furiously typing away, eager to get what was off my mind onto the page and eager to share what I had written at the open-mic nights. I remembered that my professors really liked some of them. One, in particular, a story called Fission, was a short non-fiction retelling of an event that actually happened, but with a different ending. A tragic one.
But all of the people in that story don’t exist anymore, in one capacity or another. Myself included.
And, at least in my case, that’s a good thing, I think.
Thanks for reading.