I have an email problem

My first email alias was squirelgirl94. That was a long time ago, back in the days when I didn't know that 'squirrel' had two 'r's. Now, I am wiser and have Gmail instead of Aol. Go team. And yet. 

I am afraid of my email inbox.

This is not my fault. Well, it kind of is. But how was I to know as I scrawled my email address on fleeting clipboards that all the newsletters would eventually pile up around me in terrifying piles of electronic space? It  always seemed so harmless to type in a few characters and hit that promising subscribe button. If I had known it would lead to this, I might have been more discerning.

You can just unsubscribe, Alex. It's simple, really.

Yeah but... even that seems unspeakably daunting. I have 1,007 emails right now about about 25 more every day. I don't know how many e-newsletters I'm on the list of. But what if I unsubscribe and then miss something important? Those newsletters are a part of my identity. I could be an up-to-date-on-the-state-of-the-world person if I read everything that came into my inbox every day. If I let them keep coming, I have the chance to be that person.

A part of me knows that I'll never read all the emails I get. I'm deluding myself. But I want to be someone who isn't afraid of all the unread emails. Maybe one day, I will be.

Maybe.