Cleanin' out my inbox

I am bad at responding to email. Ask any one of my friends or member of my family. Anything that requires any amount of thought or emotion (more than a sentence) is destined to be pushed back or tucked away until it accumulates such a shameful amount of dust and decay that I am forced to either deem a response unnecessary and delete it or sit down for a marathon email session to "catch up." Like any good habit, It also encourages the same bad behavior over and over. When you haven't talked to someone in a long time, you need to say a lot in order to meet the quota for news, humor and questions for the time that has passed. Not to be outdone, the receiver of this massive work has no choice but to respond with an equally substantial (or perhaps greater) email, and so on, until electronic documents equivalent to The History of Western Philosophy are being exchanged and/or one party is driven to pursue a life free of the burdens of technology in Montana.

Yesterday was one of those endurance email sessions for me and I can honestly say that at the time of this post and for the first time in years, my inbox is at zero messages. I could make some empty promises about trying to break the habit and improve my response time but I know that the busyness of life will get to me again and the emails will start piling up. Even by morning I might have a few big responses that will sit for an unnecessary amount of time while I find the time and words to respond but that will take nothing from the memory of this moment.

To all recipients of my email: I am sorry to coldly objectify our correspondance like this. I really do love you all and your words are important to me. Just be patient.