memories

I have two phones - one that I use, and the older one that lies collecting dust except when used in emergencies.
Took it out today for the trip - don't want to risk damaging a slider - and was scrolling through the old SMS's.

You can't experience this if you delete all of them - but old SMS's are like photographs, like an old note passed to you in college now found buried deep inside some junk during a spring cleaning... years later, that one short message can evoke so many memories, faces, experiences. Emotions.
It's... bittersweet. Pain, hope, agony and ecstasy, anger, love, encouragement, frustration... each message is a bud, unopened, of a completely different life path that never blossomed. An experiential seed.

And I read them, and I remember the faces, the words, what I had dreamed of, what I had feared... and what still makes me cringe today... and what makes me proud.

It's a unique, fleeting, medium, transient as the proverbial snowflake in hell. What is the lifespan of an SMS? Days, at most. Finding these... a sudden rush of nostalgia.
You can't save them, or wait for them, or expect them. They were never planned.
They just happen.
Remember how transient life itself is. The most secure investment may disappear... and the most random, unexpected castoff can survive.
And bring a much larger benefit.