Labels

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

A Valentine's Day Tribute to the Emails I once loved

  I love to get the "Happy Valentine's Day" call from my friends Michelle and Irv. They know it is indeed my favorite holiday -- whether or not I am in love, out of love, happy or sad, they remind me that I am a "romantic." I have to rethink it every year -- what does it means to me and why do I love celebrating love. It’s simple. Human beings fall in love with sunrises, sunsets, memories, their pets, family and friends, art, movies, good books, God. And, last but not least - the divinity of romantic love.
A mystery of the mind when it comes to who we love.
Where can one find all of the above? On and off the internet, we are here, there and everywhere. We choose the “Alice in Wonderland” trip with compass in hand, guiding us through the forest of unfamiliar places where flawed strangers and knights in shining armor share the spotlight. As each new dating service emerges in cyberspace, there’s a ton of dollar bills banked by websites with little more than photos and questionable bios leaving you to judge the candidates. Perhaps it is wiser to meet through your friends, family and church. Two different routes, the superhighway and in our own backyards, love is up for grabs.

It was about 10 years ago I reconnected with my high school friends and that was nothing short of "romantic" I had my childhood pals back and with the click of a button, we were communicating via AOL’s email. In those days, the email box had your main contacts and work colleagues. It was manageable and the greatest invention of the late 20th century. So, who isn’t grateful for what we had for a short time?

“You’ve got mail,” was the “envelope” we received at the speed of light. In a New York minute we traded our memoirs over the decades. Our childhood memories flooded my psyche with immeasurable pleasure. We never wanted this “quick” messaging back and forth to ever change. These instant connections comforted us, invited us, and loved us when we blue. But, everything changes and along with it went the excitement of “newness” of instant connecting.

Nowadays, our inboxes are full of ads, news, sales pitches, porn, scammers, and hackers. Frantically, we work to delete most of them. No time for little romantic notes and watching our Ps and Qs, checking for good grammar. An entirely new shorthand has taken over as we are move faster, we may forget those we already love and who love us on Valentine’s Day. Love never grows old.

Emails today come to us in waves. Every second, a new email message pops up, like it or not... Ten years later, and into the 21st century, it seems that the romance of  good email writing has taken a detour.  Those cherished emails, the very first ones we couldn't wait to read  -- now gobbled up into cyberspace, someplace.

Theresa Milo Mitchell, My Mom,  Joe's girl.
However, nothing could  “top” the love letters of my parent’s generation, perfumed and neatly filed into a decorative box, to be read and re-read, touched and held close to the heart of a loved one.  It's the old memories I'm in love with -- and the newer ones.

Emails I once loved to read and write, like the love letters of years ago, aren't totally lost.  
Home is where the heart is -- the superhighway of my mind.