Putting It In Perspective

On Saturday morning, before Jaz's first soccer practice of the season, I picked my laptop computer up off of the stool in the bathroom (where I'd left it the night before), and went to plug it in downstairs. I wanted to check my email before we left. I plugged in the computer, and tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. Our computer plugs have been finicky lately, so I didn't think much of it. We rushed out the door, had a lovely time at soccer practice (all 6 of us!), and when we returned home some hours later, I again went to check my email. The computer still wouldn't turn on, and I noticed that it was sweating a bit.

"What's going on?" I wondered out loud, "why won't my computer wake up? And why is it so . . . wet?"

"Sorry," said Lukas, coming up behind me, "I went to grab a towel from underneath it, and it just . . . fell in."

The life of my computer flashed before my eyes. I saw it all happening in slow motion. The kids had woken up early that morning and gone to take a bath. My computer had been on a stool next to the bathtub. And at some point during the bath, my precious laptop had been fully submerged in water.

"We didn't want to tell you," Lukas added, "because we thought you might be mad."

I nodded and silently took some space upstairs by myself. I wasn't exactly feeling mad. Not really. Devastated is a better word. Because, while a computer can certainly be replaced, the photo files within it can never be. And I still don't know if any of them will be recoverable (the computer shop was, of course, closed all weekend). And, no, I hadn't backed them up. But I couldn't bring myself to feel angry at the kids. It was I who left the computer in that vulnerable location. It was I who had woken up feeling grouchy and groggy and had welcomed the chance to lie in bed for another 20 minutes while the kids took a bath by themselves. I thought about how if my computer had been plugged in, and if it hadn't been the type of computer that has a fancy magnetic plug, the kids could have been electrocuted by pulling it into the tub. Indeed, when I tried to google, "laptop fell in bathtub" the links that came up all seemed to have to do with electrocution. I'm so grateful that, while my computer was destroyed, my children were left unharmed.

After setting the laptop up in a box of rice (apparently this is the recommendation for wet electronics), I went out to the barnyard to work on taking down all of the fences I put up. My mom is trying to sell her house, and the barnyard will look more presentable without my FBTSOYP contributions. It felt good to bang on something. To pull out nails. And bend wire. And destroy something that I had spent so much time building. To think about all of the fences that had come and gone on this land before. And to remember how different our life looked just 6 months ago. Before the goats, and Leo and our house-buying plans. And when I came back inside, I took a shower. And cried a little. And hugged my kids.

Just now, about 40 hours after I first discovered what had happened, I finally felt brave enough to look through Lena's photo files (on her laptop, which I am now using), and see what she had to show for the last 3 years (my laptop had 3 years worth of photos on it). And while Lena only downloaded a fraction of the photos that I did, I was pleasantly relieved to see that she does have some. She has the photos from Zeben's birth, and a handful from his infancy. She has pictures from our first two beach camping trips. Some wintertime pictures from when Zeben was just a year old. It's not as if the last three years will be without documentation entirely, regardless of the outcome when the experts attempt to retrieve anything off of my hard drive tomorrow.

This series of Zeben at the beach, when he was nine months old, is one of my favorites.

Already obsessed with birds (a fascination that continues to this day),
he'd crawled off after a sea gull.
I followed with the camera.

He turned around and discovered I was behind him
and I think his expression says,
"hey, what are you doing here?"
Of course, he is happy to see me.
The unstoppable joy of a nine-month-old.

Later that day we went for a whale watch.
The sea was quite choppy and we all got sick.
A memory the photographs don't show.

I'm OK with letting go of most of the photographs from the last three years. If that's what it comes to. Because there is still so much in this life that's so good. I can't see dwelling in the land of regrets. If only I had backed up the picture files, as I'd been meaning to do forever. If only I'd put the computer somewhere else before I went to bed. If only I'd decided to join the kids in the tub that morning. I'd rather not get mad. I'd rather choose peace. And happiness. And gratitude. For four children safely sleeping upstairs, while I write these words on My Love's computer. For having lived this glorious life, even if I don't have the pictures to show for it.