Help Getting Back into Email

I am logged into my account, which works with my Comcast email credentials. My primary email is a gmail account but my Comcast email (which I'm trying to access) is still showing as active, could that be the issue? It doesn't look like I can change my preferred email to the comast email without access to the email itself. The error when I sent an email was 550 5.1.1 Not our Customer. Are you able to reactivate the email? 

Thank you for that information, @user_truex0 When you get a 550 code, that indicates when a message is sent to a non-existent Comcast customer. These errors should be treated as an "unsubscribe" by the sender, if a bulk mailer. Are you currently an active Xfinity customer?-Richard

I am not an active xfinity customer at this time, but I have had this Comcast email address for about 20 years and I just want to get back into it! I signed in at least 9 months ago. I don't want to unsubscribe.. I want to get back into the account! 

Thank you, @user_truex0  As a former Xfinity customer, you can still use your Xfinity Email address if you logged in to your account using the Xfinity Email website in the 90 days prior to disconnecting your service. Your email account will remain active if you access it using the Xfinity Email website at least once every nine months. If it did go past 9 months which it does look like the account was deactivated which we are not able to unfortunately reactivate the email address.-Richard

Am I able to retrieve any of my old emails? Why was I not notified prior to deactivating the account? Can you tell me when the account was deactivated? I was not informed of this restriction and I've seen on other help forums that support was able to reactivate the account, what has changed?