The Experiment – A 365 Day Search For Happiness

Day 2. Trying to manage with this old laptop until the situation with my desktop is resolved one way or another. Last night as I tried to answer people who had commented on yesterday’s post I had to keep rebooting it because the mouse would freeze and I would lose everything that I had just written. Right now I write a little and “Save.” Save, save, save.

And then the sound is weird. There is a short podcast I listen to in the morning. I could hear it just fine. But the woman I follow for the ketogenic diet that does a “Morning Snippet” each morning (It’s a YouTube video) I could not hear at all, on Patreon or YouTube. I tried all day yesterday, checked all the sound settings which all look fine, but could not hear it. This morning I was able to hear her Morning Snippet just fine but we have an hour long Livestream every Friday at 11 which I look forward to (And this is something I pay for via Patreon) and I could see it but not hear it at all. I checked all the sound settings, restarted the page, rebooted the laptop and finally gave up. This old laptop is affording me some connectivity for which I’m grateful but it is old and it has issues and I cannot rely on it longterm. I will have to see what happens today. I have someone coming to look at the desktop. Could be Malware, could be the hard drive just giving out, could be who knows what? All I know is that my nerves are shot. When you depend so completely on a computer and you don’t have the funds to just run out and buy a new one if the old one is not fixable what are you supposed to do?

I am not in a frame of mind to write meaningful blog posts right now and I’m sorry. I’m scared and fear does not support creativity. And for me are the issues around realizing that my life is so dependent on having a computer and getting online, and being without it is so completely unnerving and terrifying it makes me worried. For some people this would be a nuisance, an inconvenience, something they surely don’t want to happen, for me it was like the bottom fell out.

And then real life comes along and wakes you up. I was just talking to a dear friend who told me a horrifying, heartbreaking story. A family that he knows was sitting with their children a week ago and horsing around a little girl, a tiny girl, jerked her 6 year old brother off the couch. He hit his forehead on the coffee table. They are burying him today. I broke down in tears. And I’m worried about my computer?

And the thing is of course there is no comparison. That family’s tragedy is unfathomable, I am shaken to the core just hearing about, I am praying for them, I have cried over it. And then a little time goes by and I am afraid and crying over my damned computer again. And I am ashamed. But in my uncertain world where my computer and getting online each day is the life raft that keeps me afloat this is scary business indeed. I don’t begin to compare one thing to another, this inconvenience isn’t even in the ballpark with the terrible tragedy of losing a child, I am embarrassed to even mention it, but the point is twofold. One, no matter what kind of problem you think you have it is likely nothing in the grand scheme of things, but number two, sadly, when it’s your problem it can loom terribly large for you in your life. So I am embarrassed, and sad, and ashamed to admit that this computer issue is paralyzing for me. I am praying for that family, and I am praying for me. No comparison, and with the absolute knowledge of which is the more important issue, but dealing with my own just the same. And this is life, both things.

There is something here I am supposed to learn. The week started out Monday night with the fiasco at my friend’s restaurant, being stopped by the police, and being so afraid I didn’t know how I would ever go out again. I’m not talking about the appointments and errands I have to attend to to keep the wheels of my life moving, but things beyond my normal sphere. Fun things, getting out into the world and connecting with other people, enlarging my life things. I shrank back in on myself to my world online for safety and then the bottom fell out on that. Unable to get online yesterday I completely fell to pieces. Finally whether I go out or stay in life is going to happen, and keep on happening, and things will happen to us and people that we know and love that may be beyond hard. We have to find safety inside ourself, a way to be okay no matter what. I don’t do that very well but I am damned well going to have to learn how.

Soon George will be here to check the desktop. My friend Jeff has a computer tech that works for him that he said would come out later if George can’t figure it out. One way or another the computer issue will be resolved. I am holding my breath until it does. And I am going to my daughter Rachel’s house tonight to watch a movie. The hours tick by. Life goes on.