#1: Yay you've got mail

a love letter to the digital age

Almost every month of every year since my freshman year of high school, I’ve come up with ideas for things that will keep me busy outside of the classroom. In the case of building concrete ideas, we’ll call them “passion projects.” (Cringe.) I’ve only ever followed through on one of them: a blog, which I kept during my freshman and sophomore years of college wherein I described all the fun new things I was experiencing as a transplant New Yorker. I deleted the blog a month into the COVID-19 pandemic, and from that mistake I learned that practicing creativity outside of the classroom is good for me.

In the winter of 2021 I experimented with clay, and now each of my family members is owner of a one-of-a-kind Claudia Langella original, but I haven’t ~felt inspired~ to pick up the hobby since. Then, in the summer, I turned to painting; a cute little teacup scene and red squiggle have since made their ways onto my apartment’s walls, but I haven’t picked up a paintbrush since July. And so, in order to fill up evenings on any given week night, we are back to square one: writing.

A newsletter is the perfect creative outlet for me. One thing that made me delete my silly little Wordpress blog was the pressure I felt to make things pretty—to include eye-catching graphics and interesting photos—but a newsletter feels much more doable. First, I love emails. I love getting them, I love replying to them, and love unsubscribing from the lists that clog my Gmail promo tab. There’s something about communicating over email that I just don’t get from sending a DM or text message! There! I said it! I’m probably the first young person to admit this, I know; I won’t throw them under the bus, but I have a certain sibling who hates emails just as much as I love them. I really don’t understand it. Doesn’t it make you feel so adult? (If you know me, you know I only have sibling, so sorry, Maura.)

I got my first email when I went to a weeklong sleep-away camp in Washington, DC, the summer between second and third grade. One of my elementary school BFFLz and I were nominated to participate in a…how do you say it? Uh, national young scholars’ program? As overachieving second graders, our teacher thought that we would benefit from getting a taste of college life at the ripe age of eight. We shared a flip phone—an item which was fought over almost every night of our stay—in order to talk to our parents (who were in hotels nearby) in the mornings and evenings. The only other form of communication we had with the outside, less scholarly world were our very own email addresses.

Every adult in my eight-year-old life had an email. I remember sitting on the couch next to my mother as she checked hers. I heard about my dad’s, but he never checked his at home. It was only for work, and it probably took him ten or eleven more years to finally get a personal one. Mom could communicate with my teachers about grades and absences, and she could even send pictures to my family on the other side of the country!!!! (Instagram rocked my world.)

Soon after I had my very own inbox to monitor, the rest of my classmates began sending chain mail to one another. Of course this was a big moment, are you kidding me? Who you forwarded a chain to and who sent them back to you was the prehistoric equivalent of Snapchat best friend lists. Oh to miraculously be reminded of my password to that account.

In short, emails meant a lot to me then and they make me feel powerful now. I have three inboxes to wrestle with each day (one for school, one for work, one for pleasure), and now I’m starting my own type of email chain. If only second grade Claudia could see me now. <3

Now the soapbox for me to preach from enters. I’m not quite sure what this will turn into, but for now you can expect a weekly tangent on the topics that have been floating around my mind all week. If you’re a family member: hey, thanks for being here. If you’re a friend: think of this a way to communicate since I really am so bad at remembering to text those nearest to my heart. If you’re a stranger: let’s be friends so this doesn’t get weird.