A comment, a question, a statement is enough to change your mood for a whole day.

A few years ago I worked in the shipping department of a salt mine (not really a mine) and everyday I'd come home with pockets filled with scraps of paper. Not your regular sheets of white paper and note cards but scraps of brown packing paper, corners of boxes, and other things you'd use to pack boxes of spice to ship across Canada. All these scraps of paper I'd shove in my pockets throughout the day would have my chicken scratch in blue pen or permanent black marker. All of them would have some idea, thought, or line of dialogue scribbled on them I'd thought of in the boredom of my repetitive job thinking they would be useful later. Nothing ever came of them usually I would throw the notes out later that night when I emptied out my pockets.

Recently I've decided to send myself emails in the same fashion.  I'm sure it is just as easy to write myself notes on my phone but I forget about those things and they never make it to where they need to be/ Sometimes I won't read the emails for a few days or weeks but when I finally get around to it I usually just delete them. The ideas nowadays are more about works in progress and thoughts about the future. Sometimes I fine tune them and they become jokes on twitter or something to post on tumblr later that night. But again the thoughts, ideas, and other things I send myself seem to end up in the trash more often than not.

More and more I've been trying to figure out things and sometimes reading these notes to myself help me understand. Like this note to myself from a few weeks ago that rings true to my personality and that I should try to change but I have no plans to change.

"Remember it isn't my job to be happy."

When I was in 10th Grade Pepsi Blue was released. Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, caffeine, and Blue 1. The later ingredient was banned in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland at the time.

The flavour of Pepsi Blue was often compared to the taste of cotton candy or those blue fish candies you can get at the corner store. Yet the soda is seen as a commercial failure despite being a hit with middle school children. By 2004 it was dropped from production in and disappeared from the store shelves across North America.

Pepsi Blue has nothing to do with the couch I slept on this week or the fact that I've accomplished what seems to be absolutely nothing over the past two weeks.

It may explain why I ate Corn Pops for dinner but I'm sure it doesn't.

Right now I'm staring at 4 years of old mail in my archives and all I want to do is delete it.

What is sitting in my archives? Old emails from ex girlfriends, emails from old friends, account information from things I no longer use, myspace friend requests, flickr requests, wordpress junk, squarespace junk, and plenty of other shit I'll never read or use again.

So why can't I delete it? Why does it just sit there collecting dust like so many other things I own?

I look at these things like they are a burden but somehow I hold on to old things I don't need anymore. I'm tired of carrying this extra baggage around with me it is time to clean up.

I recently did a spring clean of physical items in my place. I happily donated 7 garbage bags worth of clothes, jackets, and sweaters to the local thrift store. Along with household items and some old books. I'm trying to embrace the idea of not owning as much. Especially when it comes to things I no longer use or need.

I have to tackle the inbox. It is something I've been putting off for far to long.

I might be getting bigger but my inbox doesn't need to.

Update on Saturday, April 3, 2010 at 9:55PM by Tyson Elder

Found in the lost emails. From my days in the Salt mines.

It is getting late and I'm not to worried anymore.

There is a sizeable distance between myself and who I was. It might not be noticible to anyone right now or ever but I can tell.

I drift off. I go through the motions. I dream. I get things done for the most part.

I catch myself staring into space and the night sky without a thought in my mind. I slept by the ocean today because I couldn't shake this weird feeling I've been having lately. I can't describe it. It isn't being sad, happy, content, or anything I can label. It is is just there. Maybe it is the amount of shit I've been putting up with lately or maybe I'm just not here right now.

I keep having weird dreams (think Wayne's World 2) and can't shake the fact that I'm supposed to be doing something different. I'm not sure what I should be doing but I sure the hell know what I shouldn't be doing and that is complaining.

Is this what apathy feels like?