I finally completed the “backup” of 30,000+ photos to Google Photos. Despite having used Flickr for almost 10 years, I had been seeking some kind of photo option so I could access photos readily with the power of the web and search algorithms. And the feeling of security brought me a lot of pleasure. Since for most of the my needs, I only need a photo at low resolution whether to reference an event, a detail in a story, or to remember the moment as it happened.

And so my whole life, literally, flashed in front of my eyes. That is, all the way to 2002 when I really first began digitizing my life. A few by scanning, of course. But when I got my first digital camera, Canon Powershot S30, that I had carefully saved money from my first real job. I saw former friends, former activities, former outfits, former apartments, former classmates, former jobs, former loves and enemies. I saw it all. But most importantly, it made me remember how my life was like in my early twenties.

During those nights, I was by definition…a hermit. Physically, of course. I turned down party invitations (too socially anxious!) and rarely went to any campus events (again too socially anxious to even consider stepping in the room). But my life as a hermit was only physical. I was extroverted, speaking without any filter on forums and chats. I met people all over the world. And in the glow of my monitor, at 11 PM, I would be surrounded by at least six chat windows talking to friends not located nearby.

I felt comfortable like that. Chatting. Back then, there was no link exchanging. There was no articles to read. No social media posts. It was all about pure conversation. Maybe a photo here and there, but speeds then weren’t fast enough for video and when I did them, the tool always constantly broke. Maybe we sent an email here or there with an attached photo from the webcam. Or maybe we sent carefully crafted letters. But I can’t remember honestly about what we talked about—it must have been about everything and nothing. I remember that I would cry and laugh. That’s how it was every night—up until the last few years when communication broke into social media, my friends started drifting into purely offline communication, and the connection simply dropped. A simple “like” on Facebook was all that was needed to maintain a friendship.

I missed those nights of my early twenties. It was chaotic, because I was trying to figure myself out. But it was how I got to know people. Nowadays, I hate the idea of having a conversation over text. A friend once coaxed me into it, saying that it was the best thing ever to have a conversation over multiple days. That didn’t make sense to me, and he was almost ten years older than me…and very heavily single.

There’s a silence now before bedtime. I sleep before midnight typically, unlike the nights that used to last until the wee hours of the morning where my typing was not about typing blog posts, but rather the constant thoughts streaming through my fingers and directly into chat windows. I got to know people through lines of text, much like stream of consciousness. I was more eloquent, but definitely not as crafted as a text message. I miss it. But as I transitioned from an old macbook to a new macbook, I found myself not even signing into AIM.

I am sad, I imed Chris over google hangouts — the final alternative. Time passed. It’s slow, because nobody ever uses hangouts anyway. I know that it pings all devices. And minutes pass. “Yes,” he replies.