A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

I guess, when we start a New Year it's kind of an unspoken thing that we clean stuff up. I mean, without even thinking about it. For example, I opened up my contacts list to call my sister, and found it filled with names I no longer even recognize, much less remember why I had saved their numbers in the first place.

Some entries were complete puzzles, like "Brooke (MISC (fire ants))", and were quickly and remorselessly deleted. Others were first name only, meaning some guy who gave me his number at a bar or from GRINDR. If I'd ever actually gotten together with any of them, there'd be a last name. So, again, they're easily removed.

But then the editing gets poignant when we come to those who are no longer with us. I can't bear to delete my ex-late-wife's name, even though we divorced over 30 years ago and she passed in 2014.

Luckily I am less sentimental about everyone else in the world. But I do take time with each contact card, to remember the person whose connection to me has been reduced to a few dozen bytes of stored data. To allow myself to smile at the adventures we had, or the causes we embraced.

And then I sigh and click Remove Contact.