Back It Up

This past weekend, I had a rather unfortunate thing happen to me. And when I say unfortunate, what I really mean is ABSOLUTELY, MINDBLOWINGLY, UNFATHOMABLY TERRIBLE. While I consider myself to be more tech-savvy than most people, one thing that I have long neglected to do is backup my files. To be truly honest, the first time I had ever even heard of such a term was via an episode of Sex and the City, when Carrie's old but trusty laptop suddenly malfunctions and she ends up losing her entire life's work.

Needless to say, my story does not end quite so happily as Carrie's does (No perfect hippie woodworker of a boyfriend of mine up and surprises me with a girly Macbook complete with an even girlier-looking external hard drive...ugh). Instead, I found myself at the helpless mercy of the Geek Squad, who, try as they may, could not help me retrieve all the files I had inevitably lost. The upside: all of my Microsoft Suite-related files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) were found. Whew. The very, very, very downside of things: I no longer have ANY picture or audio evidence from the last 3 and 1/2 years of my life. That's right, folks. All of my picture and music files are irretrievably and irrevocably gone. Vanished into thin cyberair. GONE, I TELL YOU. When they told me the news, I was literally speechless. How do you even react to something like that, anyway? I have lost all physical evidence of being 18, 19, 20 and 21 years old; there are no pictures that I can look back on, no song I can play, fondly remembering how I once thought that song would change my entire life. Even now, while writing this, I am still at a complete loss for words to express the overwhelming sadness I feel. The first thing I did after, of course, was to buy myself an external hard drive. Duh. But looking back now, I can't help but wonder (a la a certain Miss Bradshaw): would I have rather lost all of my document files or my pictures and my music? Which really means more to me at the end of the day: the first paper I ever wrote in college or a picture of my first college love?

The sad thing is, I think I know the answer.