The Great Purge of '23

"Do you want to spend more for your iCloud storage?”  Dan and I are getting ready for a trip, and he’s been checking off all kinds of tasks in preparation.  “Because our shared plan is almost full, and look here, you have the biggest chunk of it tied up.” He tilts his phone my way and shows me a little bar graph of our usage. I’m caught.

I remember not that long ago seeing $1.99 show up as an Apple charge.  When questioned, Dan informed me we had maxed out our free storage, therefore he had to purchase enough gigs to cover us.  At this revelation I felt a lightness, a lifting of my mental storage space at the expansion of data possibilities. I would never again worry about whether I had room for a video, a saved conversation, a voice recording. . .

Alas, $1.99 didn’t cover an infinite data plan.

So now, in hopes of not getting charged more, I must purge myself of all unnecessary stored information.  I start by getting rid of all unused apps.  When I check to see if that was enough to give me peace of mind, my portion of the bar hasn’t even budged.  What next?  I’m told messages might be taking a lot of space, so I delete text messages.  Surely that will free up a lot of space in binary land.  After many “swipes,” punching “delete,” and “ok,” Dan tells me I’ve got to do some major threshing to get a dent made.  Sigh.  “How many pictures and videos have you got?  That’s probably your problem.”

It takes me days of procrastination to get up the gumption to begin the purge of images.  I decide to “start at the very beginning” and scroll all the way back to 2011.  What?  2011?  I’ve got 12 years of pictures to go through? I’m going to have to delay this task a little longer.

Over the next week, Dan checks in on my data cleanse and I repeatedly answer, “Don’t worry.  I’m working on it.” It’s not a lie.  I manage to squeeze in a couple of minutes here and there to delete a few stupid screen shots, pictures of food, notes, recipes I took photos of, you know, things I meant to reread later and didn’t.  I question my methods over and over.  “Why did I think I needed this quote? (or meme, or cute kitten with a clever thought bubble?) And then I get tired of sitting in one attitude and need to hit refresh on my whole body.

After three days of playing at the purge, I am approaching my trip deadline and get serious about dumping.  I’ve gotten good at deleting without question the stupid stuff, so now I go with gusto and “select, check mark, trash can, delete,” over and over.  Multiple shots of the same people/ settings disappear and I leave only the best, only the most memorable, only the good hair days, “I look skinny,” days, or special moments I can’t bear to delete no matter how bad I look.  Another loon video? Delete!  Another Eagle? Delete.  Another dog video? Watch it. Struggle for a second, then gain the strength to DELETE.  I come to the realization that I have a ridiculous number of selfies with my dog.  Surely I’m getting somewhere after spending every spare minute culling through the photos!

“How are you doing with freeing up the data?” Dan asks as we make our final trip preparations.  

I stop typing and swivel my chair toward his desk. “Can you check it? I made it all the way to December of 2020.”  

He taps on his phone for a second while I return to writing.  “Wow, Babe.  You freed up thirty gigs.  We’re still way close to our limit, but that’s much better.”

Three years to go.  Each time I delete a silly, stupid, or unflattering photo, I think, If only it were so easy to make the silly, stupid, and unflattering moments from my past disappear! God, I’m so thankful You can swipe right and with gusto “select, check mark, trash can, delete,” over and over.  

Your Turn:  During this purge I found I take the same pictures again and again; sunsets at the lake, birds, and cute dog pictures clutter my digital space.  Do you have habitual shots you can’t resist?