It’s like a bad break up. Somewhere in your mind, you think that something good will come out of it, but you just can’t figure out how to start over again. That’s how I feel about my computer, Louis, right now.

We were getting along just fine–great really–but in one hour’s time, while I went to the kitchen to make dinner, he died. Black screen. Nothing. Oh, except later, a blue file folder picture came up on the screen with a question mark in the middle and it blinked at me. Just blinking away, taunting me that there was nothing I could do from that point on to save my files, my music, my pictures, my contact lists, my wedding spreadsheets, my internet bookmarks, or even my keyboard and mouse preferences. The diagnosis?: my hard drive crashed.

It really is a sickening feeling.

The only thing that has kept me from crying about this during the whole situation is that by some Godly premonition, I backed up several of my files on Sunday right before the crash. One of these files is something I’ve been working on for several years now and if I would’ve lost it, I would’ve collapsed with heart failure or grief. I was shaking when I checked the backup to make sure that it had actually saved it. It looks to be intact on my external hard drive so I am glad about that.

I am, however, sad about all my lost photos. Thank God for facebook where I can salvage some of them back onto my computer. All in all, I’m trying to just remain thankful for Apple’s great customer service (They replaced everything for free and it only took 3 days, including shipping to and from!) and for the few documents that were saved. Other than that, I’m back at square one setting up my “new” computer from scratch. I figured out how to connect my email tonight all by my big-girl self, which was a huge feat considering the last time I tried it, I had to take it to the Apple Store to have a pro do it for me. Next up, trying to recall my internet settings and my email contacts.

The break up (or break-down, in my case) is hard, but putting the pieces back together is even harder… Good luck to me.