My Preeeeccious

You will never guess what happened this weekend. I was standing out on my front porch, talking to some friends with my laptop in hand. I wanted to show them a picture I'd taken earlier that day. I walked over to my friend Dean and went to turn the computer around and I kid you not, the laptop, as if it had a life of its own, tipped and flew out of my hands down the stairs. I reached out grasping after it to no avail. It landed on the cement below. My shiny, silver Macbook Pro landed on the cement. I seriously went into shock.

My laptop. One of my favorite things in the whole world. I don't let other people use it(now, now don't judge me we all have our weird things). I don't loan it out. I take uber-excellent care of it....(except when I am throwing it around outside). I stroke it and call it precious names. We have a great relationship.

On the cement there it lay. Gahhhhhh. You know when something really bad happens and you laugh? and it feels weird to laugh, but you can't help it? There is something inside of you that snaps and you are just slightly insane for a moment so you laugh? Well, I laughed. There was the computer that I had been so careful with, scratching against the sidewalk. There was my computer that I would take with me to work, just in case someone broke into my house and wanted to steal it. (See previous post Rrrarrr about the earlier break-in.) Out of all of my possessions I didn't care about the rest, just my computer and my iPod.

I ran down the stairs, picked it up and immediately noticed that it couldn't shut. The keyboard part was bowed. I tried to turn it on and nothing happened. My heart sank. I went inside to look at my warranty/protection plan. They didn't cover accidents and abuse, like tossing it down the stairs. (I'm still baffled by that one...) And it all sunk in.

Could my life have meaning without my computer? Could I get a new one? Not for awhile. What about my blog? and email? and pictures? and facebook for crying out loud? and my music? and movies? and and and and! What would I do? Could I pry my fingers off of this possession and let it go? But all my friends that I connect with online? ahhhhhhh!

Then something interesting happened. I let it go. I got settled with all of these emotions and decided that not only could my life have meaning, but that maybe this happened for a reason. Maybe my life was now going to be better from letting go. I could connect more outside of the internet. I could paint more. Play my guitar more. Maybe even go out more. I could check my email elsewhere. etc. etc. It would all be fine. and it would be good for me to let go of this attachment to my computer.

I walked into the other room where I had put my computer, and pushed the on button again. AND IT WORKED. It worked. Everything worked. The screen was fine. The connections were fine. It just didn't close quite all of the way...

Can you believe that? I had the perfect chance to face all of my fears etc. about losing my computer without actually losing it. How cool is that?

So now I leave it at home instead of taking it to work with me. I let people use it if they want to. I am not so concerned. It's nice to let go.