This is what happens when I sign up for daily or weekly e-mail subscriptions: I don’t read the e-mails, so they pile up in my in-box. When they accumulate into a daunting mass, I delete them. Right up until that moment when I finally let them go, I feel bad about ignoring them. Deleting them brings one last moment of regret, followed by relief that the obligation is gone.
Even though I know this, I keep signing up for these things, but I usually face reality quicker and delete the e-mails before they become an issue. Still, it took me months to pull the trigger on this year’s round of Dracula Daily, and I’ve got probably 30 poem-a-day e-mails cluttering up my in-box right now.
I should unsubscribe, but I probably won’t for a while. Next year Dracula Daily will start again, and who knows? Maybe I’ll finally read it (I won’t, but the aspiration refuses to die, and if I’m honest, I don’t want it to die). As for the poem-a-day e-mails massing in my in-box, most of them will soon be sent to the digital void unread.
But all e-mails end up in the void eventually, and though it would be nice to read them first, I realize that I can’t read everything that might interest me. Some of it (most of it!) has to pass me by, and I accept that. I also accept that I’m probably going to keep following this same ridiculous pattern for the rest of my life. But, for a change, I’m going to try not feeling bad about it.