What I lost and then found

My hard drive has been replaced.
$260.00 later and my lap top works again.
I use the term my lap top loosely.
MY  lap top is essentially gone. Not essentially. It IS gone.
I had pictures of our kids and grandkids on my lap top.
Vacations and holidays, birthdays and Harley rides.
The computer guy promised me that he would back up my pics before they switched out the hard drive. He only saved 4 years worth.  4 years of pictures are completely gone. Vanished.
My videos of the grandkids are gone.
Most of my music is also gone. ITunes makes it easy to recover the songs I downloaded thru their app. But all of the other CD's that I've burned over the years are gone.

When I turned on this lap top after we got it home, the first thing I did was cry.
It was, IS, so empty.  No apps, no icons, no favorites, nothing...basically it's.......empty.
I guess I thought it was going to be just like it was but I was sorely mistaken.
I was shocked at it's emptiness. I sat staring at it dumbfounded.
When I checked for the file that the computer guy said was holding all of my saved pictures I was initially happy. Phew! He saved them!
Until I looked at the date of the last file and noticed it said 2012.
2012!?!?  It's 2016! Where are 4 years of pictures??
And right then, for real, I wanted to throw up.
I felt betrayed. Didn't he say he had saved them all? Yes, he did say that.
I closed the lid of this foreign dumb stupid lap top, drank 2 glasses of wine and went to bed.

In the morning, I had no joy about opening this lap top up. Why bother? I thought. It felt like a chore. The fun was gone. My stuff was gone.
I felt bad for being attached to a stupid computer.
Or I felt stupid for being attached to a bad computer.
Whatever...I don't know.

"We need to reinstall the firewall" my husband said. So we did that.
My son helped by reinstalling some of my apps... Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram.
When I tried to print out a copy of the firewall protection I realized that I had no printer connected.
Where in the world did we put that CD that would restore my printer??
I found it by accident in a pile of music CD's. What are the odds that I would find that exact CD for the printer in a pile of old music CD'S??

It was then that I started to notice that I was pouting. Wanting to cry and rail at what I had lost.
What had I actually lost? Pictures? Videos? Music?  A computer?
Could I not find a way to put this in perspective?
Compared to some people I had it made.
I had simply taken the credit card and made an appointment to have my lap top fixed.
No hardship, no deciding if we should buy groceries or pay rent or fix my lap top.
4 years of pictures were actually saved. All of my music on ITunes was saved. That's 173 songs!
I found that restore disc for the printer by mistake. The firewall went in with out a hitch.
I knew all of my app passwords but one. So I only had to come up with one new one.
(Is it just me or is it hard for you guys to think up new passwords too??)

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I friend I've known since kindergarten was involved in a severe car accident 5 days ago. She's been in a coma since the accident.
On day three of her coma, her 16 year old disabled daughter died unexpectedly.
There are 3 more disabled siblings at home.  Do I really want to cry about pictures missing from my computer?

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My son went on a solitary vacation. Rock climbing, hiking and camping.
By himself.
I hugged him when he left and asked him to please be careful.
He slipped on some loose gravel while hiking and strained his Achilles tendon and had to come home a day early. If he had stayed he would have been caught in the flooding rains that engulfed the campground where he had been staying.
Slipping on loose gravel while hiking bluffs could have been....I shudder to think about it.
Flooding rains could have washed away his car, him, his supplies...

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I realized that while I was sitting here lamenting my newly fixed computer, 3 people that I knew had been affected by life altering scenarios.
In 4 weeks I'll have a new granddaughter. My other 3 grandkids are thriving.
Him and I are enjoying doing things by ourselves-riding our Harley, taking pictures, watching movies, walking our dogs.
My son did not slip off that bluff nor get caught in that flooding rain.
No one in my family has been involved in a car accident. There have been no deaths.
Can I , should I, still complain about lost pictures and music?
Suddenly I found myself ashamed to be complaining or pouting or even sad.

There are so many things to be thankful for on a daily basis.
I need to be careful lest I forget this and worry over the loss of stuff.

I'm happy to be back. I've missed you girls.

As always, Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly