email, email, and more email

Since I first started using email over twenty years ago, I have had the same email address. It was initially set up through Roadrunner, affiliated then with Time Warner although it has since moved to Spectrum.

I’ve used this email address for everything from personal correspondence to charity donations to newsletters to subscriptions to poetry submissions to online shopping. It has been registered in hundreds of places over the years. The address has occasionally been unreliable but, given how widespread it was, I was loath to change it.

Now, however, it has lost or delayed so many things that my hand is forced. I got the October newsletter from the Biden campaign and an email about planning my vote after election day. I sent a poem to my local poet circle for workshop twice without anyone receiving it. An email from the resolution center working on refunds for our cancelled trip to London went astray and almost resulted in the case being closed prematurely.

So, I have embarked on the the painstaking process of migrating from my one-stop email destination to a constellation of gmail addresses for different purposes. There is one for poetry related things, one for shopping and business contacts for B and me, and one for all the rest of my personal and organizational contacts.

The sorting is proving to be a long and complicated process. I realize I am still in the early stages of it, but it is beginning to take shape. Daughter E taught me how to keep tabs for the three different gmail inboxes open simultaneously in my browser and I have a fourth with my original inbox, all of which I am getting into the habit of monitoring several times a day. [Note that none of these is my long-neglected blog email topofjcsmind@gmail.com. The recommendation still holds that if you want to contact me by email that you leave a comment telling me you have done so, as I will see the comment and know to check the inbox. Some year or other, I’ll get to making it usable.]

What is taking a ton of time is changing the address on email lists. Some organizations have a straightforward process with a link for updating at the end of their email. Click the link. Edit your address. Save changes and you’re done. Sometimes, they email you a confirmation link for security reasons. Other times, the setup is that they email you an edit link first. Both guard against unauthorized changes.

Some sites don’t offer a way to make changes. I’ve had to subscribe with a new email address and then unsubscribe the old address.

Others allow you to update your online profile at their site, but I’ve run into lots of problems doing this. Sometimes, the site will let you change your address but then won’t update for the emails it sends you. Other times, it seems they won’t save your preferences for how often you want to hear from them. And some seem to just stop sending emails altogether.

This endeavor is also making me consider each email sender and whether or not I want to keep hearing from them. As I have posted about previously, I have been trying to tame my inbox for some time. I’m hoping the time that I’m investing in this organizational effort will eventually make it easier to deal with my email and give me more time for other things.

I wish I could figure out when I will arrive at that “eventual” point.

So far, I’ve done very little about changing my email for personal contacts. Personal messages seem to get through to my original email inbox pretty reliably, although occasionally one gets delayed for days or lands in my spam folder. Perhaps, I’ll draft a bcc email blast at some point, although I’ll probably have my poet-friends use my poetry address rather than my general one and friends of both B and me our joint address.

Something else to think about.

Who knew email could be so tiring?

Re-oragnizing

Some of my faithful readers may have noticed that I have been scarce around here the last few weeks, even given that I have had to cut back significantly on blogging this year due to family commitments. While I have been spending time on family obligations, even more of the time in the last few weeks has been dedicated to re-organizing our house (for reasons that will be elucidated at a later date).

I am the first to admit that I don’t like housecleaning, but this re-organization went way beyond that. There was a lot of going through things, both our own things and things that we had brought to our home after Grandma died this spring. Some things got donated, some got packed and stored in the attic or basement, and some found their way to new places in our home.

Bonus:  We freed up the garage so the minivan can stay out of the snow.

The most difficult thing for me, though, was sorting through papers.

Some things were painful or poignant by their very nature. Obituaries. A note from a friend who has since passed away. The fiftieth jubilee mass for a long-time pastor who died this year. Copies of my junior organ recital at Smith, a reminder that I haven’t been able to play the organ for years now, due to orthopedic problems.

Other things caused a more wistful reaction. My daughters’ artwork, starting in preschool and going up through middle school. Some of their report cards and concert programs. Programs and liturgies from our years at Blessed Sacrament, before everything fell apart.

There were some things that had been gathering dust, perched on a high display shelf in our bedroom, that I packed away. My summa cum laude diploma. My Phi Beta Kappa certificate. A certificate naming me a Presser Scholar. All things that I earned thirty-five years ago, when I was quite a good student.

This sounds like I am bragging, but remember these were in our bedroom, not out on the mantel in the living room.

Some may also infer that I am very competitive person, but I am the opposite. My parents raised us to do our own best, without regard to what others were doing. I was fortunate that my best translated into good grades, but my motivation was not gaining honors but learning as much as I could.

Having these mementos was a good reminder for me over the years when I was feeling overwhelmed that I did have a brain in my head that could go to work and research and weigh options and arrive at a useful course of action.

Now, they are in a box in the attic.

I hope that, after thirty-five years of learning, living, and growing, I no longer need a visual reminder.