Everything Is Breaking Down aka Is Mercury In Retrograde?

FYI, it isn’t. Although it WAS in retrograde when I left my cell phone on the airport shuttle bus in Europe so there’s that. But I digress. It seems that everything in my life is breaking down at the moment. First my body, with my never ending cough (which is still holding on for dear life). Then my cell phone disappears into the wild blue yonder without any of my photos from my European cruise backing up to the cloud. (Thank you, yet again, to the folks at Norwegian for having the worst customer service and apparently the weakest WiFi known to man.) Furthermore, my car went in for a simple oil change over the weekend and came out needing new brakes. To top it all off, I came home last night from work to check something on my computer and it WOULDN’T turn on.  Am I being paranoid or is someone out to get me?

Since I returned from vacation, I have made a concerted effort to be more peaceful in my life and not get on the NYC high speed train to somewhere (insert your destination). I’m not rushing. I’m trying my best to take things one day at a time. And it’s made me take a long hard look at my life, and what I hold onto—not just emotionally but physically. Why exactly were all those photos from my European trip so important? Do I need EVERY single photo I took just for memory’s sake? (I currently have 17,000 miscellaneous photos stored in my iPhone if that tells you how camera happy/crazy I am.) Then there’s the other “stuff” in my life, emphasis on stuff. I’ve previously talked about eliminating clutter from my life and have already made progress in that regard. In fact, two friends recently commented how spacious my living room looked. (It’s funny how getting rid of an entire bookcase and its contents can do that.) Still, I have a long way to go and moments like this make me ask myself, for example, why do I have SOOOOO many printed versions of scripts for EVERY play I have written? Do I really need to hold onto a physical script for miniscule changes I’m not even sure I could find if I looked, especially since they are all backed up on my computer? Oh wait, what about my computer? In theory, my computer gets backed up to the cloud every day. What if that backup fails too? (Truth be told, my computer was backed up over the weekend so I should be okay, but let’s see what the Genius Bar tells me later.)

I’m reminded of a friend who is the polar opposite of me. He is a minimalist to the core. Everything he owns fits into a backpack. This friend is an inventor. He hates when I use that word, but I don’t know what else to call him. He creates mechanical devices that do things like launch licorice sticks at you, write in the sand or release a foam layer in the toilet bowl when you do… well, the number that comes after one. (He’s kind of a smartie pants.) He posts videos of his creations on YouTube. However, once he’s finished, he THROWS his inventions IN THE GARBAGE. My clutterbug spirit found that absolutely insane and asked him about it. He said he doesn’t need to keep anything he makes. He knows he made it, he has it documented in writing as well as on video so he could always recreate it if he wanted to.

        There’s no doubt losing a computer is kind of a big deal. Losing your data is even bigger.But there’s something to be said for my friend’s attitude. A computer is certainly replaceable. As for my data, how much of it is relevant to my life now? Do I really need to hold onto EVERYTHING I’ve ever done or seen FOREVER? So as frustrated as I am about everything seemingly falling apart simultaneously, there’s something to be said for the expression: “Shit happens.” So circling back to earlier, I don’t actually think anyone is out to get me. After all, I do have backups of my computer. I may not get everything back, but I’ll get most of it. I posted a subset of my photos from my European trip on Facebook, except for the very last day so I have that. And my replacement brakes are just a simple matter of spending money I don’t have, but will need to find. Perhaps my perpetual cough is a reminder to slow down, take it easy and don’t make everything so precious. By the way, this blog entry was brought to you courtesy of my iPad. At least one thing is working in my life. (Footnote: my iPad ALMOST deleted this entry so perhaps I spoke to soon!)