Make a backup.

Do you beleive? Should I?

A while back a thunderstorm struck my neighbourhood, grey clouds and thunder like I had never heard before.
As the sun came up the rain evaporated and the birds got back to business chirping as if nothing ever happened.
All was well. But all wasn't going to be sunshine. I just hadn't figured it out yet.

After a day of work I was tired and I did what I used to do a lot. I booted up my laptop.
Typically I would play a game for a couple minutes, something to wind down a bit, and then I would work on my passion project, a music project that has been brewing within me and that I have been brewing on my computer for years. My own secret project. Something no one could take from me. The secret purpose to my life. I had even two years back bought a laptop for this very purpose. Every day I worked on my new laptop making music. It was all coming together. I had made at least twenty tracks, some of which were really unique, I knew I was going to finish them. I recorded vocals, made scores and had people record parts, I made my own samples and synthesisers, I took the production process to a height I never had previously. It gave oxygen to something that needed to breathe. Only a couple of breaths a week were the fuel for this project. It was a part of me. I knew I had struck gold with some of it. And if not gold, then at least crude oil, pearls or gems. It was my unique thing. The answer to the dull and the mundane of work and everyday life was my hope. The hope to one day finish this project like I had others before. To see all of it come together. The years of work. Something that was mine completely, because no one, not even I could quite replicate it if I had to.

But I wouldn't have to, right? I had what I had. I would work on it day by day. Hour by hour.

What does it all mean? Why?

This day I started my computer and after a couple minutes I was surprised to see the blue screen that popped up.
Not the first time something like this happened. I could hear myself think. I was calm. Why was I calm? Shouldn't a bit of panic creep in?
Nah. Just a simple reboot. It will be fine. Bootup failed. Opening the BIOS. Hm... that's strange. Let's try that again. Bootup. Again no opperating system only the BIOS. What's going on.
Hey that's weird. I could have said out loud. The ssd is missing in the bios.
I have backups though right? Do I not?

There is an area between your stomach and your lungs, a doctor would call it the diaphragm although it feels like it is deeper down than that. In fact when you feel it, it feels like it is deeper down into you, closer to your very core than anything you've ever felt. And if you've ever felt it, you know you only feel it when you know something is bad. Really really bad.

I knew something was really really bad.
I know somthething is really really bad.

I realised in what could have been either a second or an hour crammed into a second, that I had made a mistake. A horrible mistake.
In two years time, never did I once make a backup of my "new" laptop. My Nas that handled backups wasn't working, and anyways the laptop was brand new.

I did not panic. Not yet. I bought a ssd to usb chassis and took out the ssd. I read it on an old laptop, and the ssd wasn't fully recognised. It showed up in device manager. Well fair enough, I once recovered the partition on a hard drive years back, and hoped it would be this easy.
It wasn't. I tried loads of things, but decided to send the ssd to a data recovery center when I slowly started to realise I was really in over my head.

After analysis they were able to say the ssd can likely not be recovered. Giving only a 5% chance of succes.

Here's me hoping still.

The grief set in straight away. All of it.
The weird sort of headache.
The sickness.
The pain in the stomach.
Waking up five times a night, knowing something is wrong, and then having it all hit you like a tsunami.
The self hatred and all of the accusations against myself.
All of the "should have's" all of the "could have's".
An then finaly all of the religious stuff. This cannot just be an accident. This has to be a sign.
The sense of utter powerlessness makes those thoughts more appealing.

This feels like an indescribable loss.
Not just the two years worth of hard work, but the fact that I know I can never make anything like it again.
It feels like I am about to lose a part of my future.
It is part of my identity. The part of me that was for me. No one knew.

5% is not ○.
A prayer is better than n●thing at all.
I have shared this with almost no-one. ■ou guys and gals have helped me feel less alone in the ♧ast.
♡ou don't have to say anything if you don't know what to say. Just make a backup.
Perhaps then this will still somehow be part of the butterfly effect in a positive way.
The chaos that is life. It hurts.

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