I’ve been trying to remember the names of cases. Yes, I have plenty of information in this blog about the cases I’ve tried or handled in general, but no names. And, it turns out that the details I provide in this here blog are great and amusing and interesting, but they do not tell me the names of the folks I’ve defended. Neither does my email. How can that be so? How can it be that I have three different email accounts since 2002, none of which I’ve deleted, and I am unable to come up with a substantial list of names of people I’ve represented?
Mommy brain has got me. I did manage to come up with some names through the archives of the newspaper website in my old town. Thankfully they are now free so they will be downloaded and printed so I’ll know at least some of the stuff I have done. Turns out I have represented a lot of people. I hope I’ve done well by most of them.
So, during this exercise in futility, I’ve had a chance to reread some emails. I will be totally honest, there is some stuff I can’t even bear to look at. Then there are other emails that make me smile, others that have actually made me cry, or wince, or do a double take “what, I WROTE that?”
There are emails about wedding planning for marriages that have since seen better days; infertility struggles of friends in the days when I thought that would never happen to me; rude emails from old employers and my equally nasty responses; and words of thanks and praise from those same employers; SOS emails to colleagues when all of this was new to me; and those first branches of friendship from people who were (and probably still are) my only readers.
It turns out I am an email hoarder. I don’t know how many other people do this, but I keep emails even if they are useless, unsafe or unsanitary.
