Memory Thief

There was an email in my inbox this morning from Flickr. Change is coming. Charges for over a thousand photographs. I've been part of Flickr since 2006, but I only upload there selectively - I haven't put a photo on Flickr since 2017 - surely there can't be that many. But when I checked - 2300.

 

So I am left with the dilemma of a drastic cull or another billed subscription. What price to put on memories?

 

But I have to tackle this. Enough procrastination - I can do it. There are fourteen photographs of cookie cutters - not good ones, just a document of how many of the blessed things I have (had?) - it has been so long since I baked a shaped sugar cookie that I don't even know. They can go.

Seventy six photographs in an album entitled Cloudcollecting. They are just clouds - some of them I can look at and associate with a time and place, but others are just when the sky caught my eye. I suppose I could let them go, but it is a little bit painful.

And then there are the ones I just can't get past. The ones that make my stomach ache slightly at the thought of the passing of those years. I suppose the ones that if I were a better person, I would have printed out into well organised photo books. 

But I didn't, because I thought I would always be able to keep them here, in their little digital nest. And now I have to decide if it is worth a monetary sum to have them. And I feel like my memories are being hijacked.

And now I've wasted another hour reminiscing over them and am still in the same place I was before. And if you costed an hour of my time, it would have paid the annual subscription charge. Full circle. 

Comments

[Pam Donaldson]

I can see your problem. I fear that all our digital stuff - and that means so much that's significant - will vanish in time. Argh. Must do something about mine.

[Toffeeapple]

I had the same email from them; it seems they are doing what Photobucket did some time back. I was going to delete some but then I realised that the originals are all on my laptop or memory stick so why was I bothering?

It was so good to see your boys again though!

[Rebecca]

I haven't dared go look yet. I haven't posted there for years but not sure I can quite let them go. On a similar note, I worry for my cloud. It must be getting so heavy, I keep sending things up there and I'm entirely hostage to it now. Like the very worst sort of attic, full of dusty corners and unopened boxes!