unsubscribe

For years, I would start my day by deleting 20-30 items of junk mail from my inbox. when I would randomly check my email, I would delete a bunch more. saturday nights (after 24 hrs electricity-free) there would usually be 50-75 items to delete.

somehow this seemed like a normal way to handle things; i felt kind of important getting all that mail, even if it was an assortment of everything from sales on children's shoes to petitions to save the puppies.

delete, delete, delete.

i felt powerful, and like i was accomplishing something, judging between worthy and unworthy, sending the poor losers to eternal damnation in my spam folder.

and then one day a few weeks ago, i decided to try something different. instead of hitting delete, i would take an extra 3-5 seconds per email, and go through the unsubscribe process. i have to say it took some discipline, as i'm not your world's most committed person as far as sticking with a process, but i did it.

as the days went on, i felt this miraculous lightening. i would wake up to only 5-6 emails, most of which i was actually interested in reading. there was a delicious silence on the other end of the line. my inbox was my own, and i realized how freeing this was: no more incessant noise being thrown at me, no more needing to fend off words and images and ideas that i chose not to entertain.

i've felt a parallel happening in certain areas of my social life. apparently (and i realize that 35 is pretty late to come to this realization) you can choose the kinds of energy you let people bring into your life. you can choose who you allow to affect your day. mind-bogglingly obvious perhaps, but there you have it.

it's totally a work in progress. because at this point i'm mainly just not reaching out to people and interactions that keep me functioning on a small scale. but its never so simple, because friendships have history and weight and multi-faceted appeal.

so it's a constant sifting and sorting and mainly just owning the fact that my time and energy is my own. and life is too darn short to get bogged down in pettiness and small-mindedness. and i'm just savoring the lack of it, tasting the silence, playing around with what to do with all this freed up energy.

unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe. it's just a happier place to be.