As I've mentioned before, Mercury is in retrograde. It's something I've heard about and know a little about and it's not something that generally has much of an impact on me.
Until now.
This time around I feel that I have experienced the full impact of Mercury in its shadow side and I am not happy. I'm trying not to be unhappy, but it does catch up to me now and then. For those who don't believe in things like Mercury in retrograde, no worries; I haven't gone 'round the bend. I haven't lost my marbles. I haven't lost everything I have. And there may be some other explanation that you can offer me and that's fine, too. But this I know is true: Mercury is in retrograde; the "complications" started at right when they were said they would start (and for the non-believers: I didn't know this ahead of time - it was after the problems began that I saw a post about Mercury and read the dates and, voila, there was my life).
And this is the reason I am not replacing my now "fatal error" blue screen of death computer until after December 31st. Not taking any chances. My computer previously had "recovered from a serious error." That was soon upgraded to a "serious error" and followed by rebooting. Next was the "serious error" with "windows has had to shut down" blue screen of near death. And then my access to the hard drive stopped. Fortunately, I did recover the one ultra critical file before the blue screen: the archives for my business accounting software - that would be the ultra tedious thing to have to try to rebuild and I'm sure I would lose information in that process; over ten years of business information if I couldn't get my backup. Okay - I'll stop being dramatic - I probably have a backup of the information through 2005 or 2006 burned on a CD somewhere. That's the truth.
So I have to replace the computer. But not just yet. Today I tried my final alternative: the restore drive. Nada. No good. No how. It's done. The ultra last thing I can do is get this device - which my stepson has - and take out my hard drive and hook it up via this machine to another computer and retrieve data. I hope.
The thing is, I have some writing stored on that computer that is nowhere else. I've know that since the problem started. And I've accepted it. I've accepted that there are photos on there I have nowhere else. That my old electronic organizer data is there, along with archived emails I really want to keep. And more. All potentially gone. All reconciled with and prepared to lose data.
Then, tonight, I got into my laptop and opened up the browser. See, I've uploaded a lot of my writing and teaching files to an online storage location for backup and safety. Good for me.
And recently I made the decision that I need to focus my writing on completion of my memoir in progress and the "Open Boxes" novel (that one really needs a new title, but that will come later; right now the title is the last thing I'm worried about and a title will come to me when it's ready). The bulk of my focus will be on the memoir, I think. That seems to be where the writing energy is and the words flow better there and I have a lot of support to get that done and out into the world. So I will.
When I opened up my online documents to organize them a bit and start to make a plan, I saw that I never uploaded the original document in its entirety. It's not there. I have the "main story" part, and I have some segments. I won't go into all the details now, but it was written with the plot of the memoir as the throughline and then there were supporting backstory pieces in it. To see how it was working, I'd pulled out the backstory/flashback/memory pieces. And I thought I'd uploaded the original. But, apparently, I didn't. Apparently, the only place where the original in its entirety resides is on the fatal error blue screen box I used to call a computer sitting on my desk. I don't know if all of the pieces are uploaded or not.
I was prepared to let go of everything.
But not prepared to let go of the original of this book. I have one more chance to retrieve the data. And I will.
And I need to prepare to let go of that, too. And to get to a place where it will all be for the best if I can't retrieve it.
But I'm holding out hope.
I'm not ready to let go of that one.
So, until Mercury gets itself turned around, I'm taking it easy. I'm breathing. I'm staying low to the ground and not risking anything. The auto accident at the beginning of the turnaround has also forced me to slow a little, to keep close to home, to rest more, and not take on too much. Pros and cons.
Yes.
Waiting.
For Mercury to turn.
.
