I Tried to Label My Emotional Baggage and Ended Up Sorting My Inbox from 2011

1,483 unread emails and a therapy breakthrough, all before lunch.

🎵 [Imaginary Theme Music: Sparkle-chaos piano with the sound of a squirrel flipping through manila folders]

Hi. I’m Angela. Queen of Focus-ish.
And today I decided to sort my emotional baggage.

Which obviously meant opening my email inbox.
Because where else would I find unresolved issues, outdated dreams, and 73 conversations I ghosted out of sheer executive dysfunction?

You see, I meant to clean out my downloads folder.
That was the original quest. Just a tiny digital tidy-up.

But then... I saw the inbox.
And my ADHD brain whispered:

“What if there’s a coupon in there from 2014 you still need?”

And so it began.
The Great Spiral of Gmail.

ACT ONE: The Ghosts of Projects Past

I found:

• A pitch deck for a business I almost launched called “Glitter Strategy”
  
  
• Five unanswered emails from someone named Derek (??)
  
  
• A boarding pass from a flight to a festival that quite literally changed my life
  
  
• And a newsletter from 2011 titled “This Is Your Year” — which was bold, considering what happened next
  
  

Reading it all felt like emotional archaeology.
Like digging through layers of my ambition, my avoidance, my deeply aspirational Canva folders.

It wasn’t just an inbox.
It was a museum of almosts.

ACT TWO: Emotional Baggage Claim

So I made a new folder.
I called it:

“Unfinished But Beautiful”

I started dragging emails there. Old collaborations. Kind words. Ideas I never finished — but don’t want to delete.

It’s like giving my past self a soft landing.
Not every dream needs to go in the trash.
Some just need a quiet place to rest.

Then I made a second folder:

“Return to Sender (Not Your Problem Anymore)”

That's where I put the old guilt, the feedback I didn’t ask for, the “just following up” emails from someone trying to sell me a webinar I never wanted.

That folder? That folder healed me.

ACT THREE: Labels, Liberation & Letting Go

Yes, I labeled my emotional baggage.
But I also realized this:

Every old email is proof that I’ve tried.
That I’ve dreamed.
That I’ve been deeply, beautifully alive.

And even if I never reply to 90% of those threads…
I am still worthy.
Still enough.
Still exactly where I’m meant to be.

🎵Subscribe to Doom Piles & Distractions.

Next episode: I organize my junk drawer and end up reinventing my identity.

Until then — bless your inbox.
Bless your ambition.
And bless the parts of you that still believe it’s okay to try again.

🐿️✨

Learn more at AngelaDiCarlo.com