On the Rebound

By Nyx Martinez

It had been a satisfying day.

The world was a wonderful place, I thought, as I made my way to the office where my computer sat. Its keyboard beckoned my fingers to make contact.

As soon as the screen lit up, I knew something was terribly wrong. My hard drive had crashed.

It took a moment for the scope of the disaster to register in my slow-computing brain, but then it hit me. No, it slammed into me with the force of a bulldozer on a razing mission. My stomach did a back flip. My vision went hazy. My mind became clouded. The room spun.

The last six months of hard work—articles, graphic design, all that precious mental energy that had been stored on the computer’s hard drive for safekeeping—was gone.

Forever.

My worst fear, like a meteor falling from the sky, came crashing down on me. Frustration, confusion, tragedy, and loss engulfed me.

Why, oh why, hadn’t I copied all that stuff onto a backup device? Now bits and pieces of creativity were lost, floating somewhere in cyberspace, far, far from home. And I couldn’t get them back.

But then I remembered the story of when Thomas Edison met a similar tragedy. His workshop caught fire, and months, years, even decades of hard work on numerous unfinished inventions went up in smoke.

“There go all my mistakes!” he said with amazing cheerfulness. And then he went right back to work.

I wondered if there was enough positive energy left in me to start again as bravely as Edison had. Contemplating these things somehow eased the pain and melted away that woozy feeling of defeat. I struggled to stand up from where I had fallen to my knees in frustration, and I forced the corners of my mouth into a smile.

Oh, some things in life seem totally unfair! But I refused to let defeat overcome me in that moment or have any bearing on my future efforts. I decided to see this situation not as the tragic end to all the projects that were lost, but rather as a new beginning for each of them in a future that was yet to unfold.

This is the first I’ve written since Demolition Day. “There go all my mistakes,” I’m saying. And I’m not going to quit. I’m on the rebound, back at my computer and ready to start again.

With backup files.

Story courtesy of Activated magazine. Art © TFI.