Patience

I don’t know how many times I’ve started and restarted my computer in the last two days. Sometimes it restarted on it’s own. Sometimes I get the chance to make the choice. There is something wrong, but it works just enough to give me hope that maybe this time it’s fixed.

Since I have everything back up on an external hard drive, my brother (a/my computer guy) suggested I wipe it and start over. So, following the instructions and texting him regularly, I did it. It takes several hours for the computer to be restored, so yesterday evening after everything was back on, I checked it out. It still didn’t work – it wanted to be restored again.

I left it alone over night to figure itself out. I was not waiting up for this second restore.

And, wouldn’t you know, without my involvement, it was able to figure itself out. Everything appeared that it was back as it should be when I got up this morning.

And, then it wasn’t. iPhoto wouldn’t open. Word and Outlook wouldn’t open. Google wouldn’t load. Something wasn’t right.

It needed to restart again. It wanted to restore again. Enough. No more. I resigned myself to never using this computer again, so I ate breakfast. Then, just for the fun of it, I came back to see what was going on…

Everything is back – I’m typing on Word, Google loaded just fine. I have no idea what’s going on with this computer and you can bet I don’t trust it at all. I’m expecting it to just shut off during the middle of a sentence.

Hard reset. Restart. Shut down. Restore. They aren’t the same words I use, but the ideas feel very familiar. I don’t know what is causing this issue (and neither does my brother, which tells me this is not normal at all), but I know it’s struggling to find what it needs to start up after falling asleep. Preach, computer!

Even though I don’t know what to do for the computer, it seems that every time I walk away and just let it do its thing without me staring at it, the computer seems to be in better shape when I return. When I let the processes happen without any intervention, when I force myself to be patient – when I just go to bed and forget it about it for a while, all is well the next time. It’s not until I speed it up by restarting or PRAMing (or whatever) that things go wrong.

I think I’m doing the right things, but in the end what the computer really needs is for me to back the f up. Hmm.

I don’t know what future holds for my computer. Who knows, maybe all is fine now. But, maybe not. I wonder that about myself too. I don’t know what the future holds for my life. Who know, maybe all is fine now. But, maybe not. Most likely, the latter.

Rather than forcing myself to restart or insisting that I restore, maybe I need to offer myself some of that patience. Maybe it’s okay to just walk away sometimes. Maybe I don’t always need to be breathing down the back of my own neck waiting for the next step to take place right now.

For now I’m grateful that everything is on and working. For now I’m grateful for what is available. For now I’m grateful that all is not lost. For my computer…and for me.

peace.