Forwards

(Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico)

All of my friends know that I do not like to clutter my inbox with forwarded emails. 

In the early days of the Internet, the novelty of sending cute little poems, thoughtful ideas, information of the many things you can do with Coke or how to stay safe when attacked were flourishing in my inbox.  At first they were interesting and even informative and in fact, I felt the need to print some of them and file away a hard copy for future reference.  However after a couple years of the same things floating around in cyberspace I got tired of them arriving back to me whether in the same form or in variations.  They became redundant.

Also, never having been fond of chain letters in the pre-PC world, I became even less fond of the emails that came with a threat or a promise.  I actually became angry when these forwarded emails told me I "had to forward within ten minutes" or else! 

Thus, after a couple of years, I began informing everyone on my contact list that I did not wish to receive forwarded emails anymore.  My husband, getting into the whole cyberspace fun a few years after me, was one who was hurt the most by my edict.  He was fresh into enjoying the novelty of all of this information flooding his inbox and he wanted to share it all with me.

I held my ground and even hurt a few feelings along the way, but eventually people got the picture and I did not need to use my delete button nearly as often.  I stopped receiving emails that had been forwarded to a bunch of people at the click of a friend's button.

As time passed however, I began to get an occasional forward in my inbox again, often with a little expression typed at the top from the sender, "I think you might like this one".  Then I felt compelled to take a look because someone near to me thought that I would like what they had taken the time to send me.  I found a newer breed of forwards now with music, colored graphics and animations.  Pictures of babies and puppies with cute little captions flowed from my laptop. 

I realized that I had now created a monster.  People were still thinking about me, and maybe even more so.  When they looked at a forward they were prompted to think, "I bet Linda would like this one!" and with the push of a button they sent their love to me.

Now you ask, how do you get love out of that?  And I say, I know that every forward I now receive is handpicked just for me.  Someone who knows me read it and thought of me, and because they think I will enjoy or benefit from it in some way, they boldly send me a forward knowing my thoughts on the whole forwarding game.  And I think that takes some love.

Today I received a forward from my dear Aunt Jolene.  It was in the category of sugary sweet thoughts on friendship and it even carried one of those "if you are a real friend, send this to everyone on your list, even the person who sent it to you". 

I had to read it--and you know why.  Aunt Jolene was sending her love and I did not want to miss it.  A couple of the points in the list included:  4.  A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don't like you.  8.  Someone that you don't even know exists, loves you.  And the one that really touched me the most was:  5.  Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep.

I suppose I did not create a monster at all.  I did change something that was a bother and made it into something good.  It works for me and I must say I smile at most of the forwards I get now and I take a moment to look them over. 

Please don't get me wrong.  DO NOT INCREASE THE NUMBER OF FORWARDS YOU SEND MY WAY.  Do know that I love the special attention you give to the ones you do send me.

Tonight, when I fall asleep Aunt Jolene, I will be thinking about you!