Ironically, I had investigated backup equipment and programs a few months back, but the total cost wasn’t something I could just easily hand over, and I chose to take the consequences as they came (which at that point might have hopefully been never). My reasoning was that all of my important files (Books, poetry, etc.) had been emailed or uploaded to various websites, and I could always go and retrieve them whenever I liked.

Standing at the Genius Bar in the Mac Store, I dicussed data recovery options with the technician, but it would be $400 or more and results were not guaranteed. I said forget it. I was still a year within my warranty, so Baby Too was shipped off to some repair warehouse, and I received Baby Three back on Friday. Same body, different brain. Without getting too sappy about it, it was like seeing a friend who had suffered total amnesia.

Ultimately, I only lost a few snippets of Shae’s perspective I had been working on, about 10,000 internet pictures (lolcats, etc.), some pictures I had often used in association with Antebellum, and a lot of older poetry. More importantly, I lost older versions of all my books, including original notes and brainstorms, which are not important any longer, but nice to have around for nostalgia. I also lost a document called ‘Tidbits and Inspirations’, where I stored random ideas for future projects I’ve had for the past five years.

I’m still going about the process of tracking down the latest versions of my books (and all my poems are in pdf form from when I sent collections of them to friends, ugh, so now I have to retype them all), but almost losing my entire body of work made me realize exactly how important it is to me.

In a way, this was a good thing. I now have a very blank, 4 GB harddrive (yeah, I upgraded two weeks before the failure, go figure), containing only the bare essentials. My lesser quality work was never sent to anyone, so now it’s gone forever. I would never have had the strength to delete it on my own, because I’m very big on recording my emotional journey. I feel much lighter, and cleaner. It’s a fresh new start, and maybe it came at just the right time. I’m working full-time, I launched a freelance writing business, I’m taking online courses, and of course still making edits on Antebellum, so I need a little clarity of space. Also, the people at the warehouse totally replaced my keyboard, trackpad, and surrounding plastic so those ugly palm marks are gone.

All in all, a good, if painful learning experience. But, I tell you what, I will now be making monthly email backups of all the big items (forget expensive backup equipment; email’s free!). I encourage you to take a moment and do the same.