The Boy Lost It All

Jonathan Strutt
Aug 24, 2017 · 5 min read

Last week, I lost everything.

Well, not everything. My hard drive decided to give up on this cruel life and go to hard drive heaven, taking all my data with it.

Silly me for not backing up my data, right? Except I did. Except that hard drive decided to quit as well. Unlucky.

The time of death of my hard drive is a bit poetic. It marks roughly one year ago when I decided to try and write again. I wrote and read lots when I was young and always enjoyed it, but other things began to supplant it, like girls, video games, and self-loathing, not necessarily in that order either.

One year ago, I decided I needed to make a change in my life, and writing was one of the many changes. It was a slow process; the first story I wrote was in October and posted in May, and I took until January to really devote time to writing (#newyear #newme). It helped me feel more content with myself, like closing in on the right frequency on a radio.

The casualty list is as follows:

A writing challenge for myself, five hundred words a day about a different, random topic, four months in: all gone. 500 words a day times 30 days is 15,000 words. 15,000 words times four months is 60,000 words. I was well short of the 182,500 words I would have put down in one year, but 60,000 is a bit more than 0.

All sorts of random writings and journal entries: deleted.

Stories I never got around to posting or editing, including a 10,000 word story that I was always going to edit tomorrow for three months in a row: bye bye.

Poetry, created for me, myself, and I, stretching moments describable with one phrase into ten stanzas: up, up, and away.

All these poor, innocent words, slain unjustly. I pray they died without pain.

There’s also photos that I never posted to the Instagram or shared with my friends, photos from my trip to Prague, the first time I really set out on my own and had only myself to depend on: no more.

“What about the cloud?” I can hear someone scream. What about the cloud? I can barely bring myself to post fictional stories on Medium; you think I’m about to upload my deep dark secrets and real life feelings to the cloud for randoms to hack and steal and read? Pshaw. Hell to the no.

So, yes, there were precautions I could have taken that I didn’t. If that means I deserved to lose it all, I’ll accept it. I’ll accept knowing that my past year doesn’t exist, at least according to Windows.

One of my first thoughts when my hard drive was declared dead on arrival that my previous year was gone, wasted. Everything I did, everything I planned to do, life as I knew it, know it and ever will know it: ruined.

But that’s not true.

A little voice in my head questions me, asking if I’m really okay with losing everything (‘everything’), or have I just not comprehended what I lost?

Of course, it’s not like I lost a friend, or family member, or someone tangible. I just lost hours, time sunk into writing documents, the majority of which no one ever read (or was ever going to read).

But I didn’t waste time with those, either. All that time spent was spent practicing, thinking, trying to become a better writer. I spent that time becoming more comfortable in my own skin.

My writing challenge can be restarted; it was only for myself. It was a great way to get warmed up and expand my thinking. A different topic each day of the year is 365 topics. There are so many different things in the world, yet some days I could not think of one thing to write about. Just because I’m back at zero doesn’t mean I’ll remain at zero.

I lost my stories, but I can create new ones. Better ones. Faster ones. Stronger ones.

I lost my poems, but I’ll just have to open my eyes to new beautiful moments to describe in as many words as humanly possible.

But what do I have to show others about my progress? My year 2016–2017, perhaps the best year of my life so far, what do I have to show? I have no photos, no journal entries to reference; so many memories are lost.

Well, do I have to always show my own progress? Why isn’t my knowledge of my progress enough? Who cares what others say? I know how far I have come. I don’t write for validation. Well, I do, but for self-validation. I write because I told myself I would. I post stories because I told myself I would. The hearts (or claps now) are icing on the cake. I’ve let myself down for far too long, so this is me making amends to myself.

In fact, this whole ‘losing my whole year’ fiasco is more incentive to write. I should make up for what I lost. It’s time to double down (not double up, that’s unsafe, kids).

I lost a lot, but this isn’t the most I’ve lost in life. People lose more every day. I have my journey through life chronicled in little pocket notebooks I keep with me. Now those would be devastating to lose, but I would get over that too. My little moments of brilliance are lost, but there are more to come.

I’m sure people have lost more writing, too. Sometimes, things aren’t meant to last, despite our attempts to immortalize ourselves, or at least our words.

I suppose I am proud of myself for weathering this storm, small and pathetic as it may be. At a different time in my life, I would have sworn off this writing bullshit. I would have said “screw this gg” and gone back to my discontented life, trapping ideas within my head and bottling up feelings within my heart. Why write if it can get deleted? Why use paper when it can get burned? Why live when you can (will) die?

Why not? You can try and say you did, or do nothing. At least you’ll have something to talk about.

I didn’t lose, I gained a new chance. I intend to use it. When the game is reset, might as well try something new (like a blog post instead of a story).

So remember to write or do whatever it is that you love, even if the world tries to throw a wrench in your plans. Chronicle your own progress. Keep your eyes forward and your feet moving. The past is the past. I’ll do my best to listen to my own advice.

Also, you know, back up your shit on quality devices.

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Jonathan Strutt

Written by

Canadian living in Finland. Copywriting, UX writing, basically writing. If I’m not writing, I’m reading. Why else would I be here?

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