Goodbye to my old email address

Way back when the internet was all dialup and innocent, I joined Planet Netcom. a Penrith based internet provider, and logged on for the first time. I remember that I had to write out and insert script into some kind of program and do quite a lot more than the point and click that makes most things fairly easy these days. It was late 1995.

I also received my first email address, which I named after my dog Ruth. ruth@pnc.com.au. I've kept and used it to this day, even after PNC was swallowed by a bigger company, and I've sent and received an awful lot of emails since. They document, at least in part, some important times in my life.

Ruth died two years ago this October and the account has long since been superceded by another companies broadband. Still I paid the monthly fee and kept the old email, because it attached me to something I can't put a finger on right now, and it signified a little of the bond between Ruth and me. It was one of those abiding connections, maybe like an old phone number, or perhaps like a box of old letters.

Today I ended the account and I feel very sad about it. Nadia tells me that I'm being silly and that it was a waste of money, though I'm not too sure what dollar value can be attached to memory. Or trust.