when 1 of my 5,293 nightmares came true. and it was awful and I cried.

I have many fears. Oh boy, do I. #1 would be something happening to my children - kidnapping, terminal illness, accident, us growing distant with each other. #2 would involve Jared - losing him for this earth life. #3 would be a shark attack. #4 being attacked by a monkey. #5 losing my sight. And the list could go on and on. So I guess what happened last night would be a subcategory of #1.

Last night a message popped up saying our hard drive was full. Crazy. I have an external hard drive that I have saved all videos & photos from 2008 on to, PLUS I have backed up all those years on 20 dvd data disks, so I most certainly have done my job at preserving the last 6 years. At 9pm it appeared that everything on that external drive had been wiped clean. First panic attack. Luckily I knew that I had all the cds and was able to recover everything on that disk. Then at 10pm, I knew I needed to delete everything off of our actual hard drive since it was full, and knowing that I had everything back up in 2 separate places, while biting the inside of my cheek I dragged all videos into the trash. And I watched our memory space free up from 13 gb to 235 gb! I was happy all for but 2 seconds when almost immediately it dawned on me - I hadn't backed up 2013. None of it. And I just deleted it. The past 5 months of footage were gone. More than half of Warner's lifespan thus far was completely erased. Visits from grandparents and aunts & uncles in April and May were gone. Our most recent trip to Harpers Ferry from two days before, annihilated. Oh, the gut-twisting agony! I am still in disbelief. Luckily, all my photos of this year are safe and sound, which does help ease the blow. There is beauty in both mediums of photography and film, but they satisfy a different part in my heart. I love videography. Re-watching life unfold just gives me butterflies.

I am mostly disturbed about losing those 5 months with Warner. As if the 2nd child already doesn't get the same 20 minutes of daily footage that the first did, now he's lost a good half of HIS FIRST FREAKIN YEAR! Probably in the grand scheme of his life, I'm sure these 5 months won't matter in the next 17 years I have with him living under my roof...but it really does matter to me. Right now this is my baby. My baby who is growing up all too fast. My first son who I love so dearly and now I feel like I've robbed him. Again, I know I still have photos, and this probably just seems like a ton of blubbering over nothing, but this is the closest thing to death that I have come to. And that's really lucky for me, I know, because if I can't handle losing some videos, then I don't know how I'm going to handle the loss of a loved one.

Jared was gone when this travesty happened and when he came home, he first came to give me a hug, knowing what had happened. He knows how much documenting this life means to me. Which got me thinking about why I am so adament about accounting for my life. My measly little life that isn't known to anyone but my close small circle. You want to know how dedicated I am to making sure every nook and cranny of my life is accounted for? Ok. Let's count. I have a personal journal, a thoughts journal, a journal for Evelyn, a journal for Warner, family videos, family photos albums, instagram, this blog... This blog houses my family's little legacy.

The other week I taught a class on blogging. One of the questions I got was about privacy and if I'm worried about being so open. Yes, part of me is conscious of that, for sure. But the other part of me  wants to be open about experiencing life. I have always been struck by this quote, and I think this sums up why I love journaling in every form, and why I love to share it on this space:

"I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful; for not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition as himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use." - Samuel Johnson, Rambler #60

I love thinking that maybe someone who stumbles across this blog might be able to learn from me, to celebrate with me, grieve with me at times, confide in me, find hope and joy in me. I know I have found all those in the lives of others. To see that we are all living a unique story, yet similar in so many ways. Life really is something to be celebrated. So now I just have to forget that there will be a gap in our family videos from Jan-May 2013, and pick up where we are now. BUMMMER!

And now because these are random photos I took at the park that do not warrant a post on their own, but are only just so cute, I'm plugging them in here: