I have been getting that annoying pop-up on my phone saying that I don’t have storage left in my iCloud. I’ve deleted picture, apps, notes, texts, you name it. One of my last-ditch efforts was to delete my voicemails. I don’t like phone calls, unless I’m busy and need to get/give information quickly. However, I am a big fan of leaving voicemails. I just like that you can save them and listen to them whenever you want and hear that person’s voice, so, naturally, I always save the voicemails I get. Trying to delete them was hard, especially after I decided to listen to all of them.
There are about 20 voicemails saved on my phone post-purge. That sounds like a lot, and I agree that it is, but these voicemails are important to me. I have recordings about receiving a scholarship that changed my life, sweet early morning messages from my boyfriend that he left while thinking about me on the way to work, hilarious questions from my grandmother about how to use her phone and many other voicemails along the same vein.
These can be deleted, sure, but I’m happy that I didn’t delete a few messages that seemed unimportant at the time. I’m especially happy not to have deleted voicemails from my great-grandmother. She was a huge part of my life, spending the day with my brother and me on Fridays after school, until we got to middle school and became too busy. My great-grandma had a car wreck, the day I got home for winter break, during my first year in college, and I was voluntold to be her driver for the duration of my break, which was over a month long because I got lucky with my exams. It was totally fine, but she wanted to go to Wendy’s every. single. day. When I was home for spring break, it was the same deal, but I got better at telling her “no.” She would call and leave messages, if I didn’t get to the phone in time (a.k.a. I was still asleep), and she’d ask when I was going to pick her up for Wendy’s. Hearing these voicemails a year after she passed brought tears to my eyes, especially hearing the sadness in her voice when she knew she wasn’t going to see us that day. It made me want to go back in time and take her wherever she wanted to go, but sadly, I can’t.
I recommend saving your voicemails, since you never know when you won’t get to hear someone’s voice again. Purge them often, but keep certain ones, even if they sound unimportant. You never know how much it’ll mean to you in the future.