ctrl + alt + delete

My computer decided to give its last dying breath as soon as I returned from Japan. Perhaps it was the jet lag clouding my almost always too present emotions, but I didn't feel much of anything when that constant black screen greeted me. I did not shed one tear or even show a trace of anxiety when my cousin said the dreaded words: "I'm going to have to format it." Maybe it's because everything that really really mattered (photos and essays) had been backed up long before in the fear that this day would eventually come. Either way, I felt only calm as I carried my four year old baby on my back, down the street, onto the subway, across the city, and down another street into the dreaded house where all this said formatting was about to go down. I patted it once before my cousin whisked it away to perform the deed. It was suddenly my Marley but I was no Owen. I ate tacos and shared photos from Japan instead, and forgot why I was even there.

And now my baby is back. It may look unphased and unchanged, but it's faster and smarter than before. And although I appreciate these improvements and the reliability they bring with them, I now feel so distant from it despite the four years spent together. Gone are the 4000 songs that were the soundtrack to years 19-23. Gone are the conversations that lasted late late late into the night.

But even though these losses may make my Marley a stranger to me, they also make me fully and finally finally free from the past. Technology can have a strange and unexpected grip sometimes, and I think soon, any day now, I'll come to love my baby again.