I recently received an email from the helpdesk at my alma mater, informing me that my UserID for the online services provided by the university would expire in one month. I read through the email, remarkably unconcerned that I would no longer be able to register for classes, search for internships, or pay tuition bills. I did, after all, graduate almost a year ago.

But as I read further, I realized this also meant I would no longer have access to my university email address. The message advised me to go into the system and forward any emails I wanted to save to an alternate address.

I used my university address exclusively for most of my college career. Gradually this year, I have phased it out. However, as I am cursed with a lethal combination of a ridiculous level of sentimentality and my grandfather’s packrat gene, I knew I must have over a thousand messages saved on the webmail system.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent hour upon hour going through these messages one by one. It was like paging through a book that chronicled the past five years of my life.

You can probably imagine that this was a bittersweet experience for me. While plenty of pleasant memories came back to me, the email account was also a very accurate record of the unpleasant experiences during my college years.

What I quickly realized, though, was that I got to decide what stayed and what went. A sense of power came over me as I forwarded everything I wanted to remember and deleted everything I’d gladly re-forget.

A message from a high school friend, telling me about the beginning of drumline season and how difficult it was for her to have new instructors and watch the morale decline. Haven’t heard from her in a long time, but I miss when we were that close. Forward.

A message from a professor, confirming a time to meet and talk about a paper grade I wasn’t happy with. I remember that meeting. He didn’t raise my grade. Still got an A in the class. I win. Delete.

Series of mass emails I wrote while in Sweden, summarizing each month of my trip in pretty good detail. Forward.

A scolding from another exchange student while I was in Sweden, telling me how I made her out to be a bad person and was dishonest in my journal. Delete.

A message from a college friend, sent shortly after I returned from my study abroad program and was feeling lonely, that simply said, “Smiles are pretty. I hope you are smiling.” Awww. Forward to myself, and also to him just to say thanks almost two years later.

A whole file of energy and phone bills from my apartment last year. Ugh. Delete.

An invitation from a cute guy, asking me out for coffee at the beginning of my senior year. Hmm. Tricky. Went out with him several times and liked him, but then it just faded out. Later I found out he now has a baby with another girl. Eh, forward. He still bought the coffee.

Email from one of my students when I was a TA, telling me he couldn’t come to class, ever, because he had to work, and that I should do everything I could to help him. Ha. I’m relatively sure I failed the sucker. Delete.

Panicked message from one of the pastoral team members at the church I attended in my college town, asking me for the hundredth time to go to the church and move the food for our food drive to the “storage location” (i.e., my apartment). Delete.

Very complimentary message from said pastoral team member, thanking me for moving the food and commending me for “taking the bull by the horns.” Yay. Forward.

Emailed version of an evaluation of the retreat I co-directed, with nothing at all negative on it. Forward.

Blank message after blank message after blank message with only data and syntax files attached from various stages of my honors thesis. Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete.

Message from my thesis advisor, telling me the first draft of my paper was disastrous and several sections needed to be rewritten. DELETE.

Final message from my thesis advisor, congratulating me on my defense and assuring me she would take care of all loose ends. Forward.

I’m nearing the end of the emails now, and I must that while I enjoyed the sense of power for a while, I’ve also started feeling a bit foolish. I can’t really just delete an email and pretend that it never existed, or that the events it described never happened. Scrolling through four or five of the most influential years of my life has made me realize how much I have changed since I was the tender age of 18, and how every incident, large or small, remembered or forgotten, deleted or forwarded, has already left its mark.

Still, I think it was important for me to realize that the choice or whether to forward or delete was mine. All the events chronicled in those emails are part of my past whether I like it or not. They do not, however, have to be a part of my future.

The expiration of my university net ID feels like the official closing of my college years. I forwarded what I wanted to take with me, and deleted what I wanted to leave behind.

Mildly philosophical, isn’t it? And perhaps hopelessly idealistic?

Maybe. But enough to inspire this sentimental packrat to try to make more moments into messages I would forward.

I am certain many attempts to do so will be failures, but that’s okay.

My current email account, after all, has a “delete forever” button.