Who would have ever guessed we'd reach an era where we'd need to establish "cyber-attics"? Instead of a shoebox to keep old photos, letters written on fading paper, odds and ends that spark misty memories, we now need a minimum amount of mega-bytes on a hard drive.
In this age of digital photography, e-mails, IM's, file sharing, social networking, and all other forms of electronic communication and connection, letting go of a relationship is no longer as easy as washing that man/woman right outta your hair. This stuff sticks around.
A recent photo taken during one of our last dates was sent to me through e-mail. I opened the attachment, which created a permanent file automatically stored in my "Downloads" folder. Then I saved the file with a filename and put it into my "Pictures" folder. I wanted to share it with friends, so I attached the saved file to a new e-mail, which stored a copy in my "Sent" folder. One moment in time. One memory. Four copies that will last a lifetime.
I'm not ready to trash the photo. I've ditched a lot of the e-mails, gone through the IM logs and thrown out as much as I dare to at this point. I'm not getting any younger. My opportunity to create new memories is fairly less than it used to be, so I'm a little more particular about what I keep and what I try to forget. In a few more years, I'll be struggling a lot more to remember, and these photos - now a little painful to look at - may remind me of times when I did feel happiness and when I was in love and when I knew the intimate closeness of another soul next to mine.
Of course, one errant virus or slip of the finger on the wrong key, and I could end up losing these electronic bits and pieces of my life's data anyway.
Maybe I should burn it to a CD.....
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