Defrosted

Our trip to Florida was such a wonderful break from the freezing chill that permeates Arizona's deserts during the winter as well as a great opportunity for my grandfather to meet my husband. My grandfather, whom I adore but haven't seen in ages what with the oceans and continents between us, and who has apparently saved every single thing I've written over the past few years; both blogs and emails.

Now, there was actually a blog here, right here, on thesuperheavy - years before this one - it was before I knew anything about websites or had a brainy husband to build a proper blog program for me, so I bought the domain and kept it at a place called Angelfire which had all kinds of templates and goodies for the HTML-deficient me. That blog was fairly short-lived and deleted quite purposefully, I even let the domain go for a few years in between - although if you work really, really hard you *can* actually find a few meager bits and pieces of it, clinging to digital life like things on the net seem to do - however old, however useless.

Honestly, I don't want to find it. I know it's there, but I don't want to read it. I throw away remnants of the past the way other people throw out vegetable peels - without mercy, without hesitation, and certainly without nostalgia and I did my best to delete that old account but apparently missed a few "click here's". I don't have boxes of yesterday, virtual or otherwise, tucked away anywhere and I like it that way. Imagine my surprise then when I was presented with a manila folder stuffed with years and years of things I've long since forgotten, things I deleted when I decided it was better to forget, things I don't want to read, or touch, or remember. Things I don't want to know about myself.

That folder, I imagine, will mean something to me later - when I'm older and more comfortable in my own skin; and it was, is, an incredibly sweet gesture. My grandfather's tiny, beautiful wife thrusting the folder at me while she showers me with compliments, urges me to write a book. I love that they've kept that part of my life for me, if only because it's the kind of thing that family members do and I'm a sucker for those few-and-far-between familial "movie moments" - but for now, I've left it behind. Anyway, there's another couple years of thesuperheavy they'll be printing and stuffing into that folder labeled 'TESS'. One day, I hope I'll be able appreciate it's contents. Maybe.