OK – I broke my computer. Yeah, I rode it around like an old VW squareback. Jamming it into gear, tossing old magazines and candy wrappers into the backseat. Leaving the windows open at night. Never changed the oil. I didn’t think of any of my data as irreplaceable. Most of it could be reproduced or found again. Then, yesterday, it wouldn’t start up. It was broken. I broke it.

The Apple Genius Bar genius said he could fix it, but the data couldn’t be saved. I haven’t been backing up my hard drive. I thought I could replace everything; I didn’t want to take it to somewhere else and pay “hundreds of dollars” to retrieve my files. I just didn’t have anything on it that was that important. And I wanted my laptop back – right now.

I am hooked on being online. I need that dopamine rush that comes with every new image that pops on my screen. I run through a round robin of my usual sites – Instagram, Apartment Therapy, FB, Pinterest, then check my mail, send out a resume, research, Google….

Hooked. It is my only vice. Sometimes my main recreation.

When I got home from the Apple store, I fired it up. And it really sank in – there was nothing in there. Nothing.

Then, slowly, I started to realize what was lost. All. My. Stuff. It was like I had moved to a new apartment and the moving van hadn’t arrived.

All my resumes, all my recent photos, pdfs, receipts, statements. Fortunately, most items can be retrieved. And I never delete emails, so I am now wading through the old attachments looking for my lost stuff. And thank goodness for Pinterest and the Cloud.

So, I decided that if I am going to spend this much time in front of my laptop, maybe I should do something more interactive, more ‘productive’. Maybe I should start a blog. Isn’t that what everyone is doing? Isn’t that what I should have done years ago?

I do have a unique voice. I haven’t seen any blogs by a mid-life – empty-nester – single-living – unemployed – parent-caretaking – new-age – goddess. I’ve googled it. Not there. Maybe I should lend my voice to the blogosphere.

So this may be quite a hodge-podge muddle of all the crazy stuff the swirls around in my brain.  But there will be no cat pictures, no recipes, no organizational advice, no spray paint and no cappuccinos.