I had this deep sense of dread, something told me this was going to be it!

LAST WORD BY TRACEY BOONE SWAN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 02

As if I needed a reminder of how one thing, one small mishap, can completely alter your daily routine, my computer died. It wasn't a sudden death, no, there were warning signs that I didn't entirely ignore. The glitches continued to get progressively worse. I did all the systems checks, and discovered one or two viruses that had crept into the computer despite all the software I'd installed to protect the hard drive.

When the problems started, I had this deep sense of dread, something told me this was going to be it! I thought of taking the computer in, you know, to one of those Geeky Tech Shops. But the fighter in me wouldn't give in—I decided I'd try to figure it out on my own.

Right.

So began my nightly (and over into the early morning) hunt online and everywhere else I could think to search to solve the computer’s issues.

For a month or so, I disappeared into the tech-driven chat rooms asking questions beyond my knowledge and expertise, hoping maybe, just maybe, I could fix it and make it work.

In the end, nothing I did worked. Then after the computer got stuck in this loop trying to start up Windows, I did the unthinkable—and what I’d hoped to avoid—I gave it the command to ditch everything, restart from the beginning, losing everything.

I’d like to tell you I felt liberated—all the computer baggage suddenly erased, the freezing up, the sudden unexplained shut downs due to system failure, the missing software files it constantly searched for as soon as Windows started up—all that was gone.

But that wasn’t all that was gone--hundreds of photos that I’d taken of my son, of my family and friends, of the places I’d been, those were lost too. I won’t even mention the hundreds of songs I’d downloaded from itunes (only about half of them fit on my ipod).

And it occurred to me—such is life—the baggage is what makes it real, meaningful, tragic, precious.

If you could start over, wipe the slate clean, would you do it? Not your computer, your life, would you?

Not me.

May you constantly press through what holds you and be inspired by the things that keep you awake, make you smile, make you cry, make you laugh, make you happy to be living!