It wasn't always this good

I'm currently on a mission to close my accounts with as many of the tech giants as possible. The other day I finally mustered the courage to begin the process of shuttling my Google account.

If one account could be used to recreate the entire history of me, that's the one. Not least because of my Gmail account. It contains nearly two decades of my full email history. Every single incoming and outgoing email.

You see, up until recently, I used to be the kind of person who never deleted an email. It's the one place I let my mostly dormant hoarding tendencies go unchecked. For years and years. Because you never know when being able to dig up that one email from way back when might come in handy, you know?

Before closing it down, I decided to take a little trip down memory lane. To start all the way back at the 35,107th email in my archive and have a look to see what life was all about back then. And, boy, did it bring me back.

Going through those old emails was a visceral reminder of what life was like back then. Even skimming through subject lines brought back the struggles, the challenges and the emotions of those days. Worries I no longer offer a thought.

"Thank you for your interest, but we've decided to go forward with someone else."

"Your card was declined. Please update your payment details."

"I had a great time and you're nice, but..."

"We can't see that you've passed the necessary requirements to take this exam."

"Your proposal was interesting, but we're going in another direction."

A stark reminder of how much of a struggle everything used to be. Just going through those emails made me feel sorry for this guy in his twenties who was just doing his best to find a way.

His way.

I sometimes think about some small detail of my life that didn't turn out exactly as I had dreamed. Just a little thing that is off by some margin, and it can be enough to make me feel down about myself.

Going through those old emails, though, I realised that I today have and have done more than that guy way back then had ever dared hope for with a touch of realism. It made me feel lucky, grateful and blessed.

I suppose I owe Google's generous storage limits for the timely reminder that life wasn't always this good.