There is nothing quite like the feeling of opening your personal email to discover you have several new messages. There is also nothing quite like the disappointment that follows when you discover that those messages are the web equivalent of junk mail or bills. When I had a career and my work and personal emails were intermingled I did not notice this as much. I assume, this was primarily due to the fact that within any given six hour period I might rack up between 20-50 emails. Most would be work related, but in a career do you even notice the distinction?
Being outside of the workforce these days means that I acutely feel each payday that I don’t get a check as well as each email that I simply move to trash. I might expectantly open my mail to find seven new emails, only to shortly realize that one is from Time Warner, one is an AT&T bill, two are job leads I sent myself, two more are Facebook notices for comments I already read online and the last one is some store I bought something at who are now trying to sell me more crap. I never noticed until I stopped working how much of my life was filled by email. These days, even my personal messages reach me not as emails, but as text messages or comments on FB. We have so many tech avenues available to us that email is suddenly becoming the online version of snail mail. Not only do I no longer rate a phone call or letter, but now even email is too long a process. If you can’t say it in 160 characters or less what’s the point?
I am learning that the point is that once you strip away the white noise of a job and junk mail (both of the paper and web variety) life is a bit lonelier than you imagined. When I worked I spent a great deal of time on the phone, in meetings, or reading/writing emails. When I got home I did not want to get on my computer, let alone check my mail or interact with other people. I think one of the primary reasons for my acute loneliness upon moving and being unemployed was the realization that rather than a busy life full of social engagements and friends, I had work and a quiet, slightly barren personal life.
These days I am diligently working on building a more robust social life in the absence of a job, but I still catch myself getting excited at the sound my computer or iPhone makes when I have new mail. Sadly, I am equally let down when I open it to find that the only people interested in communicating with me are various merchants to whom I owe money and several groups I think I might be erroneously associated with such as Christian singles (I am neither) and penis enlargement products (barking up the wrong tree for two distinct reasons).
I miss email. More than that, I miss email that contains real messages. I am a pen and paper girl at heart, but since letter writing is pretty much done for, I have adapted and come to appreciate the news and greetings email can bring. Now that we are firmly entrenched in the ever more shortened communication technology of text messaging I cannot even enjoy a good email. Am I the only person left who prefers full sentences and paragraphs? Ah well, I suppose I can still revel in a good text conversation going back and forth in real time, or so I thought. Tonight I got a junk text message. I miss people, and I don’t even like most of them so that’s kind of saying a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment