There have been a lot of things stacking up lately. More pressures from all directions, more to do, more to be, less time to put towards the important things – important as defined by life not by work. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was the computer failure.

My laptop died recently. I hyperventalated and freaked out and cried and then tried to forget it. To hope for the best. To keep my fingers crossed for retrieval.

You see I hadn’t backed up in months. Months of holiday celebrations and photos of recipes and god knows what else. Stop judging. I procrastinated, put it off, had to buy a hard-drive, had to find time, will do it tomorrow. Then in the blink of an eye – or more accurately the blink of a folder with a question mark – it was kaput.

I turned on the other neglected computer and started using that – I am currently refusing to even look at my camera cards to see what might be on them because I don’t want to deal with what isn’t – and I waited.

But time went on and there was no word from the repairman Mr. W was dealing with because I could not bear to do it myself.

Then the other night there was word. Not only is the hard drive very badly scratched – how the f does that happen?? – but he is not sure if anything can be pulled off of it – and if it can it will take equipment and time and money and there is no guarentee.

And that is when I broke down. A open-mouthed, body-wracking, screwed-up-face, ugly cry that would not end and left me so drained I couldn’t do anything but sit and stare. Do you know what it achieved? Not a fucking thing. But I couldn’t stop. Mr. W offered to make me a cup of tea – bless him. He doesn’t make tea. About 10 minutes later I rescued the pot from the stove before all the water evaporated off and singed it. I made my own tea and it made me feel a bit better although no less empty.

Of course I don’t know the admin password of my current computer so I can’t use TimeMachine or do updates on it. Are you serious? Is this a big fucking joke? So I am treading lightly, fingers crossed every day that this one holds out until I back-up. Terrified and numb.

Yep, it’s a first world problem and so many people have worse ones. But it’s my first world problem and right now is a big fucking deal. It’s months of work. Months of things that never got posted or sent to people. Months of posts that I now only have lo-res online images – yes, better than nothing but still so frustrating. And it’s not just that. It’s the hours of time now to chase up and catch up and sort out. Time I don’t have, can’t afford, don’t want to spend. And the fear that I will discover for months on end yet another thing that is missing. Best to just cut-free and start agin? Who knows, I still have a modicum of hope in the retrieval man.

And to revert straight into childhood, I miss my mom. Times like this I just need a hug.