I erased my entire hard drive the other day. This would not have been a problem had I backed up my hard drive beforehand. Unfortunately, I had not.
I am not exactly sure why I did what I did, except that I was trying to dig myself out of a very deep techno-tunnel with a very tiny shovel. It may have been a subconscious move to unclutter my computer or my mind or my life. And there was something exhilarating about an empty computer, until I realized that most of my photographs, bookkeeping and design projects were nowhere.
That was truly an existential moment.
Now, if you are lucky, you will never erase your hard drive without a backup. But if you are truly lucky, like me, you will erase your hard drive and your back up will be a friend, who will give you her Saturday. She will calmly sit you down on a sunny deck and make you a proper pot of tea with banana bread and biscuits and painstakingly, patiently put you back together again without judgment.
So now my computer, my life and my mind have returned.
And that is how I spent some of the loveliest, most memorable eight hours of my life, so far.