Back in the Day, When I Still Had All the Answers

I've had the same email address since Grade 8, meaning I've got an inbox of 6 years' worth of email. I never deleted anything unless it was straight-up junk, just in case I needed it.

Well this week, good old general_derez@hotmail.com finally gave out and started spamming everybody, so he's got 30 days before I have to put him to sleep. I remember the afternoon Nolan and I signed up for him. We named him general_derez because I met a kid at camp whose email was captain_clink, and I thought that sounded cool, but we figured a general is better than a captain. Derez was the name of Nolan's created character on WWE: Day of Reckoning.

I'm in the process of switching over to a brand new Gmail account, a service for which I've heard nothing but solid reviews. It syncs nicely with my blogger account, but I've yet to figure out how to make it work with MSN messenger. Oh well, maybe it's time to put MSN to sleep too. There's only 2 or 3 people I talk to on there anymore, what with facebook chat and all, and as a result I'm on blogger more often than MSN these days anyway.

I imported all my 6 years' worth of mail from good old general_derez@hotmail.com, and began the process of archiving it. The deeper in I got, the more surreal the experience became. It really was a window into the mind of 15-year-old Michael, and I could see the little gears turning in my crazy 15-year-old hormonal head as I read.

I found dozens of emails between myself and a girl from Powell River BC that I met randomly at an airport in Costa Rica, and I chuckled at the junior-high problems we would vent to each other about. We were the perfect confidantes for each other; completely uninvolved in each other's drama and totally objective, but 100% on each other's side. I messaged her on facebook to see how she was doing, and it was great to reconnect.

I found dozens more between myself and my Grade 9 girlfriend, who lived an hour and a half away in Beaumont. We emailed each other almost every other night for the whole 9 months we stayed together. We were so cute! It brought back memories of sheepishly asking my dad's permission to go on the computer in the kitchen, and even though he knew exactly what I wanted to do, him asking "What game do you want to play?". He seemed to get a kick out of making me say out loud "I want to email Michelle...".

I found a bunch from a girl that liked me in Grade 11, sent over the 5 weeks I was away in Europe that spring. I wouldn't date her because she smoked, but she would update me every couple days on how she was quitting smoking while I was away, and how much she missed me. Whenever our hotel had free internet, I would find a bundle of adorable emails from home. We did end up dating when I got back, and she dumped me after a month, but no girl has ever made me feel as loved as she did over those 5 weeks without seeing me once.

My writing was atrocious. I thought it was cool to punctuate and spell everything perfectly, but never use capital letters (I still do this on MSN, skype, and facebook chat). My thought structure jumped around like a drunken monkey, and I remember thinking how cool it must be to sound so unpredictable and off-the-wall; You never know what this guy is going to say next! My attempts at being subtly cryptic variably made me facepalm and laugh out loud.

The thing that struck me most about my former self was simply how oblivious I was. Oblivious of myself, of my circumstances, and most of all, what my correspondents were trying to tell me. I had many sincere moments of "what was I thinking" and "if only I knew back then what I know now".

I feel privileged to have taken this glimpse into my past self. This must be why some people so religiously keep a journal or diary; it's an entertaining and thought-provoking thing to read one's own writing from years gone by. Hopefully, one day I'll look back on this blog post and be treated to such a glimpse again.