… or, “How a Massive Data Loss Turned Me Around.”
I have a tendency to worry. The earliest example of this trend has become the stuff of family lore. There I was, a child of five, sobbing in front of my mom, “I don’t know who I’m gonna marry!” The fears and concerns have matured over the years. I’ve even said they are the “right” things to be worried about, and that I am being a responsible adult to focus my thoughts accordingly. But today, I feel different. I don’t know where to begin. The premise of this post has been percolating in my mind for ages. And I’ve had the subtitle queued up as an intended self-fulfilling prophecy since mid-July, over three months ago.
All Is Lost (“Seriously?”)
There I was, a child of thirty-eight, sobbing in front of my wife, “I don’t know where it went.” I was crestfallen. We had just gotten home from vacation. I had turned our home computer on for the first time in a week, and began to do some catch-up work, when I discovered that a folder which, as far as data is concerned, meant everything to me, was gone. Around seven gigabytes absent without a trace. “We have Time Machine,” consoled my wife. “Not on that drive,” I responded. I suspect she may have been furious at me. How could an IT professional not make a backup, in triplicate, even, of a series of files which he would describe in retrospect as meaning “everything”? Well, that IT professional wasn’t a complete idiot. Those files were on a RAID drive which did in fact mean that a mirrored copy existed on an array of hard drives. But, it turns out that just wasn’t enough. To make a long, traumatic story considerably shorter, and somewhat trivialized, I spent the following few weeks doing the best I could to recreate that subfolder. On the strength of the fact that nothing truly exists in one place these days, I swept through DropBox, emails, iCloud, clones from previous migrations, and the most recent, sadly outdated, backup of the entire folder. And the result after several weeks of intense work is a new folder, of nearly the same content.
You’ll notice I haven’t revealed the contents of this mysterious folder here. Was it photos, movies, the great American novel? You’ll never know, and not because it’s a grand secret, but rather, because this could have happened to anyone. We all have that collection of data (whether digital or analog) which we hold dearly, perhaps too dearly at times, yet which is one stolen phone, smashed hard drive, or flood away from complete removal from our lives.
And in the spare moments between the occasional resurgence of tears in my eyes and the refreshing of that subfolder’s master folder, hundreds of times, I began to find some clarity. That’s when “How a Massive Data Loss Turned Me Around” came into my mind, and became my mantra. I vowed that I would make it through this one incident, and that I would resurface a changed man. But how to bring that past tense blog title to fruition? How to go about changing at least 33 years of behavior?
I’ve tried before to explain my style of worrying to people. It’s not, as most would think, that I’m afraid of getting hit by a bus, or losing my family. I think my Christian faith helps to keep that end-game at bay, as I steadfastly believe all will be well when it’s said and done. True, I am terrified at the awareness that either my wife or I will feel the life collapse from the other’s hand, and we will never know the circumstances until that broken, destructive day. But, any rational human being would feel the same. I don’t seek to relieve that constant symptom. In itself that unbelievable end serves as a chilling reminder to live well, to treat each other with respect, and to honor all the vows we made to each other early on.
Rules, Always Rules
Perhaps it’s more “burdens” than “worries” that have plagued me all these years. I instinctively live by a set of rules, whereby if I fulfill them and follow set processes for all avenues of my life, I will feel better about the world (in theory) and experience a sense of relief (in theory). I’m a task list guy. I clear my inbox at the end of every work day, and can’t stand to see a badge above any app icon on my phone. Those counts, those dings all represent work undone. And if there’s work undone, I will not be at peace.
There was a brief “holy shit” moment a few Christmases ago when, enjoying a week off from work, my staycation “achieved” itself, and I felt free. Tasks completed, friends visited, family cared for, and bills paid. I had reached an unfamiliar plateau deserving a new term: I was “on the max”. I felt incredible. I watched an episode of a television show without getting up multiple times to add something to my to-do list, or ask my wife what we would next. For that moment, I was in the moment.
But, alas, the next addition to that list left me feeling, once again, like I was a failure at “keeping up”. Being “on the max” was not something that your average relaxer could understand. I guarded the phrase for myself. How could anyone else relate to my sensation of eased burdens?
I doubt we did anything very fun that “vacation” week. I was too busy living a different life than my wife. A life which exists in real-time, and in the adjoining room, but which never considers actually “living”. “On the max” level attained; but lesson not learned.
Christmas Yet-to-Come
Flash forward a year or two to Saturday, December 21, 2013, the Seaholm Family annual Christmas party. The eight of us were assembled in my parents’ tiny living room. I was at the keyboard, blandly leading the carols. And in that moment, I got the sharpest feeling, which shook me to my core. A fully fleshed voice spoke to me not as feelings, but as a legitimate sentence, a “take heed” sort of alert that something was going to be lost that year. “Oh my God,” I thought (and that’s not even a phrase I ever use). I assumed as any of us would that someone in that circle was going to die in the coming year. Fearful, I sang with all my heart, and registered every face the rest of that day. Superstitious though I am not, I didn’t dare speak this supposed portent to anyone during the next 365 days. Simply not worth the risk.
I’d thought of that feeling from time to time since then, but only this very week did it start to make sense.
A Darkness Shines in the Light
Four days ago, I picked up my car from a marathon five-week session at the local mechanic, following a marathon twenty-two-month battle with its check-engine light. It was an intense struggle for me, to say the least. The light would come and go, sometimes without pattern, sometimes very predictably. I made logs and observations that would let me know when it was going to come on. “Whoops, stop light ahead, get ready.” Three sets of mechanics did some top-level care, and said they were not interested in digging any deeper. In a way, my methodical brain would please itself each time I forecast its appearance, but in actuality it was killing me, daily stomach aches, sleepless nights. I tried to make light of it when I could, as in a Facebook status one day this summer: “Citizens of [my neighboring towns]: Yeah, that was me turning heads, with the windows down because of the broken A/C and blaring New Edition and Mr. Mister to mask the sound of the recurrent check engine light. What, ya jealous?”
I didn’t often talk about it with my wife, too touchy a subject. But she knew it was killing me too. We didn’t have the cash to deal with it, and if we just made it through its annual inspections, I’d “deal with it” as my own internal struggle. That’s the way I tend to deal with things, as an internal struggle. It’s my nature. But this fall, with more frequent appearances, I knew something had to be done. Enter the thirty-six day stay at the garage.
A Light at the End of the Tunnel
I began to plan future moments, and began to condition myself toward those goals. I looked forward to listening to the Watkins Family Hour’s “Feelin’ Good Again” as soon as its lyrics felt appropriate. The song played in my head for weeks awaiting the appointed time.
In an equally silly, but similar fashion, today is the release of the Peanuts Movie, which has been on my mind for months.
On that last Monday in September, I had no way of knowing what was ahead. Day after day of constantly churning stomach, wondering if the phone would ring. And when it would, only brief messages that it was still a work in progress. I can’t count the number of times I was forced to second-guess its arrival at home.
But, I realize now that I too was a work in progress. My car and I were sick. Sometimes, these things take love, care, and around thirty-six days. I picked up my car this past Monday, and all is well. Hoping to get an inspection in the next week, in fact.
And I realized something startling at one point this week. That ominous voice that warned of impending loss came to me just three days before my dashboard first revealed that most unwelcome of Christmas lights. It wasn’t a beloved family member, as I’d feared, but instead, a bit of myself that I lost that coming year, a bit of myself which may be revived yet.
