Guide To Google Drive
Google Drive Gave Me Space to Grieve
How to process the memories that live on our devices
This piece is part of How Google Drive Can Make Every Corner of Your Life Easier
If you’ve ever been in a product design meeting, you know that often, it’s impossible to predict all the ways a piece of technology will be used once it’s out in the world. Human experience is too variable.
I’d bet, for example, that Google’s product team didn’t have “grief management” as a use case on their whiteboard for Google Drive, but that’s exactly what I used it for.
I met Greg when I moved to Chicago for graduate school. We had an intense, whirlwind relationship that we both thought would be forever. Then, less than a year after we started seeing each other, he relapsed into an addiction. After several messy half-breakups, I cut off all contact but kept in touch with his family in the hopes that I’d hear from him again when he got clean. Instead, nine months later, I heard that Greg had died.
It was only after he was gone that I realized how deeply Greg’s presence was still embedded in my digital life. He was all over my computer and social media accounts: Photos. Chats. Emails. Articles I’d saved about addiction. Put together, these things…
