Out of the Ashes

Recently, my computer died.

Not slowed down. Not threw a little tantrum and needed a restart. It died.

Along with it went nearly six months of files that had not yet made it into my regular backup. I was getting close to backup time, but apparently the computer and I had different opinions about how much time I had left.

There were business files, important papers, works in progress, and photographs of handmade artwork. Some of those things can be recreated. Some may exist in bits and pieces elsewhere—in emails, online, on another device, or tucked away somewhere I haven't thought to look yet. Some are simply gone.

And yes, that hurts.

There is something particularly awful about realizing that a thing you made with your own hands still exists, or once existed, but the photographs and records of it may not. Artists accumulate an enormous amount of digital history without necessarily realizing just how important it has become until suddenly it isn't there.

For the first little while, all I could really see was what I had lost.

But as I started rebuilding the computer, reinstalling programs, hunting down stray copies of files, and figuring out what could be recovered, something else began to happen.

I started noticing what I didn't need to rebuild.

Over time, computers collect clutter much the same way houses do. There were projects I had wandered into because they seemed interesting at the time. There were rabbit holes that led to other rabbit holes, and probably a few rabbit holes with entire housing developments inside them. There were things I had intended to get back to “someday,” even though someday had been getting farther away for years.

Losing everything certainly isn't the decluttering method I would recommend.

But here I am.

So instead of trying to recreate every single thing exactly as it was, I am looking at this as an opportunity to decide what deserves to come forward with me.

Some projects do. Some ideas absolutely do. Others can stay behind.

And I'm making changes.

Critical files will be backed up more often instead of waiting for my usual larger backup. Important artwork photographs and documents will have more than one home. There will be a Plan B for the things that would be difficult—or impossible—to replace.

Maybe even a Plan C for the really important stuff.

I'm also setting some new creative goals. With fewer old projects sitting there whispering, You really ought to finish me someday, I can put more attention into the work that matters to me now. I can rebuild with intention instead of simply recreating the clutter I had before.

Would I rather have learned all of this without losing my files?

Oh, absolutely.

But I can't change what happened. I can decide what happens next.

Sometimes a fresh start arrives because we choose one.

Sometimes it arrives carrying a sledgehammer.

Either way, there is something to be said for standing in the mess, looking around at what remains, and deciding what you want to build from it.

So, out of the ashes I go.

A little wiser about backups.

A little more selective about rabbit holes.

And with a much clearer idea of what I want to create next.