all is not well

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photography by victoria goda

Maybe you’ve read my post on my Patreon Page or you’ve seen the status of my Facebook Page. Either way, I’m here to say that all is so very not well. Technology failed me again is a story I never wanted to repeat.

The files I thought were safely tucked in the folders of my drive are gone. So to speak. They’re inaccessible at best. Due to my drive becoming RAW or partitions no longer being read or whatever terminology you’d like to use, my files are not with me. I can’t use them. They remain tucked away.

So, the site has had an even bigger overhaul than I first anticipated.

And let you and me be honest. I balled. I cried so hard the night I found out, I almost thought there was nothing else for me.

It was a devastating blow to an already beaten resolve.

This is where depression would come in grinning from ear to ear…

…if I had let it come in.

Surprising my friends and especially myself, I was able to rise from the tears and sadness of losing my original artworks (mostly recent 2019 pieces). I was okay. For reasons I’m still quite baffled by, I was able to talk myself through the issue of loss.

The five steps of grief.

Often I will go through the all familiar steps of grief-

  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

And the elusive 6th step: Meaning.

It’s so very easy to go through the first four steps, easy to lose ourselves to the dragging negative emotions. I was there, for sure and I thought maybe my USB hub was just misreading my drive. I even tried to ask others to read the drive on their computer. When the disbelief settled, I got angry. Most of it to myself.

I was never one to make backups but I did believe the files in my website would be a suffice back up of my art. The funny thing is, this isn’t the first or second time that technology failed me. I’ve seen the deadly blue screen on my laptop more times than I’d like. Even a hard drive breaking wasn’t new but at least not to this extent.

Fate had other plans as you all know.

And like most cases, I tried bargaining with my beliefs. Through talking out loud and between tears, I went from bargaining to depression to acceptance in mere hours.

I knew I equated the loss of my art with loss of identity which was not true as I am more than my art. I am the creator of them and therefore I can always recreate what I had lost.

Knowing my greater importance set the balance right once more.

I am worth the forgiveness I give myself and the effort I spend improving my skills as an artist and a writer. The words to my posts may be forever lost or my art pieces locked away but I am still the illustrator and writer that I was before this all happened- maybe even more.

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