It isn't dumb, I went through the same thing about 3 times over the years before I got smart enough not to tie mine to my ISP.  I currently have several gmail accounts.  They aren't all mine but I set them up and manage them.   Personal, farm. fire dept (before the state gave us an "official" one), family reunion, church, church pulpit search, cemetery (yes, a cemetery needs an email account!), my eBay store, etc.

Gmail accounts being so easy to set up you can do special purpose ones, like the church pulpit search. All 3 members could log in and read and send email.  And when it's done you just ignore it.  Maybe log in every couple months and delete the spam.

You can also set up a legitimate but rarely used account for all those folks who really want your email, like contests and farm show giveaways.  Check them every week or so in case there is a good email in the bunch.  Personally I use yahoo for that.

One feature that you need to learn in a situation like this is forwarding.  All those I want to automatically forward to my personal account so I don't have to spend an hour checking them every day.

I'll be honest, I don't care for the gmail interface as well as the Outlook version I was using a few years go. This was pre-DSL.  I could log on, download, and then work off line locally on my computer.  I had folders set up that sorted incoming mail to automatically. But all it took was one computer crash and that ended. And after using it a few years I have learned to live with it.

EDIT:  Oh! and prevent id10T problems (read the name again)  ALWAYS write down the passwords.  I have a fireproof box in the office.  I tell the wife if the house catches fire forget the photographs and grab the password lock box.