You know those things we all know we’re supposed to do but don’t? You know, like flossing your teeth, blocking your ex on social media, and… backing up your computer files? Well, I learned a lesson on that last one the hard way. I’m still shook up about it.

I use my laptop for everything. In the age where smartphones reign, I’m still that girl that has a laptop all the time. Why? I’m a writer, of course! For 10 years, I’ve been writing and using my laptop as my personal space to store my plethora of ideas and stories.

As of the start of 2017, I also use my laptop for work. I work in Social Media Marketing, so my laptop is my job.

Last February, the worst thing, the thing I never even considered, happened.

My Computer Crashed

I was only one month into my new job and suddenly, I didn’t have the one tool I needed to complete it. I panicked. I googled (on my phone, obviously) the closest computer repair shop to get it fixed. I brought it in and put my baby in the hands of an expert.

Luckily, I was able to borrow a laptop in the interim to complete my work.

The thought about my files didn’t even cross my mind until I went to pick up my computer. The tech told me to check over and make sure my files were there when I got home. If anything was missing, he advised me to bring it back in, as he would be able to access the lost ones from my hard drive.

So, I get home and I look through my files. What’s missing? My folder marked: Books. That was where I kept every document of my writing journey. All the ideas. All the notes. All the starts to novels (and a few unedited completions).

I’m not kidding you when I say that folder had nothing short of 100 files in it. Seriously.

I didn’t panic, not really. The tech advised me that he could extract my files from my old hard drive, so I brought it back in.

Then, I got a phone call that ripped my heart in two. He wasn’t able to access them.

My Hard Work Was Gone

Now, I don’t really understand technology on the back-end, but he said that he could see them on the hard drive, but that he wasn’t able to access them to get them back to my computer.

I brought it to another repair shop and they confirmed what the other tech said. This shop told me that they could send the hard drive to a contact they had that specialized in accessing files in this way. But, he didn’t like doing that for two reasons: (1) it was very expensive and (2) there was no guarantee they would be able to get them. (I genuinely appreciated his honesty).

Since I couldn’t afford the risk, I didn’t send it out.

When I got home later, I sobbed. Sobbed. I cried into my fiancé’s shoulder for over an hour. I don’t know when I had ever cried so hard in my life. It was like losing a piece of me by having those files erased.

It was baffling to me that of all the files on my computer, these were the only ones lost. The silly pictures I saved from Pinterest or StumbleUpon over the years? There. The old college papers I’d written? Saved. Why, of all the files on my laptop, were the ones that meant the most, the ones that were erased.

It broke my heart. It still breaks my heart, to be honest.

Trying To Stay Positive

Now luckily, it wasn’t a total loss. I knew that I had backed up my files when I got a new laptop after graduating college. I had transferred everything from the old one to the new one.

I remember hoping and praying that somewhere between then I had been smart enough to back up again.

I hadn’t.

It took me close to a year to actually check that flash drive to see what had been saved. I knew it would break my heart all over again.

When I finally checked it, the last time I had backed up was 2013. It had been four years. In those four years, I had written so much. Now, it was gone.

I felt like Carrie Bradshaw in that episode where she lost all of her files. She never backed up. She had never even heard of doing it. I, of course, had. I should have known better.

It’s taken me a while to come to terms with this (I don’t think I’ll ever be fully over it). But, I’m trying to see the positive! This gives me an opportunity to revamp some of my work. I can start over with my original ideas and recreate them.

And this time, I’ll be sure to remember to back up my work.