nostalgic or something of the sort

So watch your time
Time descends
Let it spill quietly
From your hands
Oh, and the time is at hand
When all things under the sky
Go free of time

-Blue Mind, Alexi Murdoch (Away We Go soundtrack)

My SMU email account expires very soon, so a few days ago I set to the task of going through all of my many folders of saved emails and deciding what was worth importing to my current email inbox and what could disappear into the dark abyss of the death of an email account.

Four years worth of emails that I deemed important enough to categorize and electronically file away.

Some that now in hindsight seem completely random. Or no longer of relevance or importance.

Homework assignments, assorted copies of documents for organizations I was involved with, passwords for things I no longer use or need. All of that before stuff that once was so much a part of my day to day life.

Those were easy to leave behind. To say good-bye to with the decision not to click the box next to them and move them into a new email resting place.

Then there were the personal ones. The ones from friends. From family. The silly ones. The ones that I saved because they made me laugh or because they hold memories or stories or capture moments that I now can only experience through words and pictures and memories.

A whole semester's worth of emails between a dear friend and I from when she studied abroad.

The email that brought the news that our summer research proposal had been funded.

Emails in Spanish from Bolivian friends.

Words of encouragement when I needed them the most.

"You got the job" and "You didn't get the job" emails.

Recipes. Articles. Journalism projects that consumed weeks and months of my life.

And the very first one I saved- words of encouragement from my mom after I emailed her all emotional and freaked out after a whole two days of being at SMU.

A year ago I graduated.

And now I'm here, a new corner of the world that doesn't feel so new anymore. It fits...

in the story, in the adventure, in the way that things do when you try your best to listen and jump and move forward because He is calling you onward.

the past is no place to live, but it's certainly fun to visit on occasion.

congrats all of you new alumni- may you enjoy what is to come.