Clear the Cache

By: Reasha Rieves

One day, which honestly could have been any day that ends in -y, I was perusing social media– you know, daily brain cell burn. Mid-scroll, a folder popped up on my phone’s taskbar. It was an alert telling me that my smartphone was running low on memory. This was something that happened a lot because I have an old phone, and I refuse to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on a new phone. As long as I can make calls and get my social media fix, I don’t care what the phone looks like. (For those wondering, I have an Android. Aht aht! We are not going to get into the debate of Android versus iPhone. Cut it out.)

I immediately thought about some apps I could delete to free up memory. I even moved pictures to the cloud, but that didn’t help much. Time to vote one of my apps off the island and… I just couldn’t. I needed them! Did I actually? Of course not, but who are we as humans if we are not ridiculous and have a minimum of five apps that we share the same one photo to, just to get it liked on all five apps? I begrudgingly decided one must go. I went to my phone’s settings and got to the menu to see how much storage space each app held, and I noticed an option, “CLEAR CACHE.” No true idea what a cache was, but I noticed for most apps, the cache took up more space than the app itself! A quick web search told me that the ‘cache’ itself is like a junk space. Its sole purpose is to store data temporarily. I touched that button for the app on the chopping block, and the folder on my taskbar was gone. Easy peasy. I still have my app and the essential information, but I freed up a lot of space that was not being used in a meaningful way.

Before returning to my social media rabbit hole, I had to pause. What if I applied the same steps to all the folders of foolishness I have in my mental storage? Looking at our lives, how many temporary things are we holding on to that have taken up valuable space within us long-term? I decided that I needed to clear the cache of my life. What exactly does that look like? It seems like a LOT, but it looks like clarity. No need to wait until a new year or new month; I started in the very next new moment. I held some space for my thoughts, and I let them fly. I could no longer hold on to that person, that prior version of myself if I were to gain better in my present and future. It was not easy, and there are still some files I do not have the courage to clear or delete just yet, but I will say the clearing that has taken place has been worthwhile.

Those texts from ten years ago you’ve been keeping as “evidence” for when something [that is never going to happen] happens? Let that go. Those pictures that make you question if you are worthy of the great things going on in your life because of the horror you experienced? Let it go. That hurt? That overthinking? CLEAR THAT CACHE! Take some time to evaluate what’s necessary and what is junk, and proceed as needed.