I’ll Send An Email

This month marks ten years since my graduation from Purdue.

Which all really boils down to one fact: I am ancient.  

No really.  Old in all caps… OLD.

Now sweet classmates who are already wanting to cry, “We are not old!”  Lemme paint a little picture for you:

If we were to meet an incoming freshman today and tell her that we graduated in 2009, it would have been like someone telling us as freshmen that they graduated in 1995.

1995…!

No offense to the Class of 1995, but my mind would only go to one place and that was that you were old.  Very old. OLD. 

But, with a sense of wonder I would start to think: What was college like then?  

How did you do… everything?  How did you do it without the technology I had? How did you get through Spanish homework without Google translator?  Or, research internships? Or even write a paper?  Did you have your own computer?

And, like, how did you let the fraternity boy know that you and your sister’s arrived to the party?  Did you even have a cell phone?  Oh my God. Did you have a… pager?

How did you stalk your high school boyfriend’s semi formal date and take relief in the fact that her hair was… not cute? (I was a really nice 19 year old…) Was it even hard to even just keep in touch with friends from high school?  Did you have an email address?

Realistically? Probably not.

I see the same twinkle come across the eyes of today’s undergrads when it clicks that I did college, complete with a summer abroad and anther in LA, without a smart phone.  

Even my sister- just four years younger- listens with wide eyes as I tell her about the first iPhones in 2007 and how awful of an idea they were for a college student that has a beer- or five- a few nights a week.

Now class of 1995-er, you may have liked college the way it was and you may think the technology I had- like Facebook and AIM, personal laptops and flip phones- were unnecessary (not true) and distracting (very true). 

And, while I am so glad that I hit campus pre-smart phones (Sorry.  I have to empathize: SO GLAD.), I really can’t imagine without things like my cell phone (despite T9 and texting rates), my laptop and the internet, and especially without the ways of keeping in touch like social media, texting and email.

My book club recently read, “Text Me When you Get Home” which is an interesting look at female friendships from history to pop culture.  The premise of the title is that “Text me when you get home” has become a way of communicating love and care for our female friends.  In a way, “Text me when you get home” has become a way of saying “I love you.”  It also prompted the question in the discussion of the book: “How has technology impacted your friendships?”

Answers varied, but were obvious.  In general, the conversation was that technology has been great for friendship.  Older women loved that it has helped them reconnect with lost friends. Women my age and under love that it helps our friends stay connected.  Facebook and group texts were a favorite.  Email was deemed useful, but mainly for logistics.  Planning a get together, sharing new addresses, general updates.

My group of friends from college started an email thread in 2006, the summer after freshman year. Our first long period of time apart.  It would pick up every break with updates, plans for getting together, or details we needed to discuss for the return to school.  Our email thread is still alive and well today.

I got to thinking about this email chain and some where along the way, amid the plans for tailgates and sharing our new mailing address, we shared so much more than logistics.  

Our email thread is our story.

A literal documentation of who we are. 

Who we have become apart from one another and together.  

We grew up in our gmail accounts from college girls complaining about life at home after the loose, “no parents” world of college to women with careers, homes, babies and more. We helped raise each other- together- with every new note. Through our sharing and learning and dreaming with each other we helped each one of us grow up.

In our emails we made plans for dinner in Indy or Chicago, but also shared our heartache when the boy we had loved moved on or the frustration when we needed that one boy to just to get a clue.  We laughed about our “shenanigans” and awkwardness.  We made claims to get “high school thin” over and over again. We confessed through bitterness and sarcasm how much a parent’s disapproval/divorces/hyper involvement hurt.  We shared our highs, our lows, and our goals.

Our emails went international when one of us was abroad.  A very wine fueled update from me in Switzerland still makes us laugh today.  Others in France, Italy and Spain.  Coast to coast, we celebrated landing internships… and struggled through the reality of a forty hour work week behind a desk or on our feet fetching coffee, food and samples.

In an attempt to embarrass, drive us apart and to ostracize, our email thread was even once hacked.  This resulted in a nauseating day with secrets revealed to parents, roommates, loves and crushes.  But, despite the thousands of miles that separated us, it was our email that brought us together and made us even closer.

Through our screens, we continued to bond over our first steps into the “real world” and responsibilities post graduation.  Dogs, rent, bosses, health insurance. New friends, work friends, lost friends, boy friends. 

Through email, we planned reunion tailgates and nights back at “our” bar on campus. They were great, but always left us feeling a little sad with the recognition that it wasn’t our place any more.  We were growing beyond the place that brought us together.  The place we once called home.

As the years went by, promotions were celebrated.  Job loss- and the identity loss that comes with it- was shared.  Grad school gripes and graduations filtered in.  Meeting up for drinks when traveling for work was arranged.

Emails soon gushed with engagements which lead to plans for sharing rides to our friend’s hometown and rooms on the wedding block.  The love that never came for the girls that totally deserved it was felt, even though they were always the first to write back with an ecstatic “Congrats!” The honesty and gut punch from the note containing our the news of our group’s first separation, sprung us all into action trying to find ways to show her the love and support she was worthy of.

And, of course, after love and marriage came the babies. And, they came and came.  Always announced in email- well before social media- asking for prayers for the risky first trimester, admitting that we wouldn’t be drinking that weekend at the lake, or showing off baby’s first photo.  The babies came with such a force that one of us disclosed she was finally expecting; but, in this chapter, our emails had been a hard place as it proved to be a challenging road to motherhood for her. 

Amid the anticipatory notes planning showers, bachelorette parties, 30th Birthday get togethers, road trips and getaways, sadness would find its ways to slip in. Fortunately not often; but in deep ways, death hit our group.  Grandparents. Aunts and Uncles. A dad. A friend. A friend’s husband. A stranger that leapt off an overpass right in front of us.

As I look into the next ten years and more, I know there will be so much good in my inbox. Probably many more babies.  Love will grow and maybe even surprise some of those who are still waiting for the right love.  Both resulting in more showers and even a few plans for weddings.  Career success will come.  Dreams will be achieved.  New addresses will be shared and updated.  Some of us may feel the tug of motherhood, unfulfillment, or restlessness to step into something totally new and exciting. 

And, despite it not being our home anymore, Purdue will always be ours.  Our kids will grow up together there with tailgates and more.

But, like it has been already, sadness will be there too.

Stats being what they are, we may see more divorce.  New messages may reveal more job loss, but now- older and with families- the stakes are higher.  Kids may have struggles that change the lives and families I love.  Money problems and addiction may wreck havoc on relationships and even change us.  

The parents who I danced with at weddings, who invited me into their homes, who fed me and shared advice over wine, like my own, may get sick.  There is a good chance than in the next ten years, a few may leave us. 

The men that I love for many reasons, but mostly for the reason that they love my friends may too.

And, as women closer to 40 than 21, I can’t be naive to the fact that it may be in this space on the internet- the space that holds the story of us- that I learn that one of us is sick too.

All the emotion, all the news in black and white text on my screen, almost all the moments I wasn’t prepared for, arrived here. But, each time, we took it on together.  In our gmail. We will continue to grow and learn from each other right here.

It sounds trivial.  I get it.  You may even think news like “cancer” via email seems impersonal.

And, while I love a phone call far more than the average person, it’s not.  Not at all.

Just like how “Text me when you get home” has a different meaning to those who know it, to this group, “I’ll send a email” means so much more.  

It means, “This is important and-good or bad, big or small- I need you all in this with me.”