Memory Almost Full

As I am not one of those people who often conducts conversations via SMS, my phone does not frequently run out of space to store all sent and received messages. Run out of space it does though, about every three months, at which time I am prompted to delete some of the texts lest they be deleted indiscriminately for me when new ones arrive. This task can be both awkward and enlightening as I see a portion of my life seemingly flash before me eyes. Ghosts of the past and kindred spirits compete for space in my thoughts, returning me to times both long forgotten and in the case of some, best left behind.

Moving through New Years then Christmas and back towards my birthday, I find the somewhat random messages from people for whom I probably exist on a contact list for mass messages. I am wished a no doubt drunken Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year by people I met in a bar once and also by those I long assumed had written me off and culled my existence in their personal database. Some SMSs around mid October that wish me a Happy Birthday are sent by those for whom I am probably just a memo in their phone or those who are guilty of previously not returning phone calls. Granted, this is not always the case for the well wishes received but they are at times curious. And then there are the other messages.

In amongst the ‘where are you’, ‘I’m running late’ and ‘can you bring something’ missives, there were the texts that often take place in a fledgling relationship. The flirty suggestions worded to provide double entendres and the arrangements to meet up for a date. The kind of communication that probably wouldn’t take place verbally but exists as a product of the distance that SMS provides the user. Going back through messages to delete them however, I first arrived at the end of the affair, where neither party wanted to be a part of what wasn’t working, before I reached the beginning.

In addition to these, some texts I came to had been saved for one reason or another. For entertainment, information, sentimentality and perhaps also for proof, these were also somehow indicative of what my past year in fact had held for me. A birth, a joke, an address, a reminder and other events that were deemed significant and for which it seemed worth having a reference at the time. I am pleased to say though that in the spirit of a new beginning in the new year, I deleted all the messages that served no practical use and my phone is now a clean slate. Isn’t it a pity that life is sometimes not that easy?