Abigail M. Schilling

When I drink, I don't sleep. I'll take a nap, and then wake up super early. I'll take some ibuprofen for the headache and be WIDE AWAKE. My internal clock gets tweaked somehow and I'm energetic and ready! to! face! the! day! So I bottle that energy and go to Starbucks and then pretend to write. It's very validating.

That might have happened today and combined with some other factors--the time change and an alarm blasting talk radio at me and being in a different bed in a different place--I was at Starbucks mapping out my day by 7 am. Woo, productivity. So, I'm mapping out my day.

I had an adult baptism (with luncheon! which was more lunch than tea party!) to attend so I do a search to see what kind of gift I should bring. The internet suggested crosses, hearts, and commemorative plaques and candles so I decided gift card. Congratulations on your faith commitment, here's some coffee!

The next step was getting all the directions for the church and the luncheon location and writing them down. Often I just memorize them and since I'm not good at memorizing it ends up being a guessing game. Is this the street? This one? It was kind of u-shaped on the map, hmmm.

And that's when terror strikes.

I'm searching my gmail for the reception invitation and I'm getting zero results. I keep trying different words, lots of words I KNOW are in the email. Nothing. Zip. I open the trash to see if maybe I accidentally deleted it? And what greets me is Heart Attack City. Over 200 emails, real emails with colored labels and stars and replies are in the trash. I panic. How did they get there? How long has this been happening? Is there a FILTER that has been FILTERING all my important emails and tossing them?

Stuff in the trash expires after 30 days and the idea that emails that I care about are no longer in my inbox, that are are gone FOREVER, is pretty much one of the scariest things that could happen to me.

Thankfully, there was no phantom deleting filter and there were only several days worth of valuable emails. I restored them all, very quickly, and then combed through the trash some more to see if this had ever happened before. It hasn't so it must have been me selected all and deleting, me treating my valuables with disrespect, me acting like myself. Sigh.