The very next weekend after my friend’s baby shower two things happened: (1) I graduated from Yoga Teacher Training (Yay!), and (2) my Granny died (not so yay). I mentioned this because today of all days had a major technological disaster directly related to (2) while engaging in behavior I learned in (1).
Today is a holiday–Columbus day. This holiday has been celebrated for as long as I can remember. But everyone seems to have their panties in a bunch about American history lately, so there seems to be some sort of effort to remove it from our holiday calendar. Nevertheless, today (for now) was still a holiday. Not only was it a holiday but it was a holiday on which my little love was still in school. Which means, I had the day to do WHATEVER I wanted.
What I wanted was to do everything all at once but nothing at all. I wanted to go to the gym. I wanted to cook something healthy for me to eat during the work week. I wanted to start this blog (because its something that I’ve been meaning to do for the past five years but finally got up the nerve to do it). I wanted to take a long bath, ALL BY MYSELF, and without an audience. I wanted to meditate. I wanted to take a nap. I maybe wanted to get a pedicure or a massage. I wanted to do all of these things and do them all very well because TODAY was MY DAY….until it wasn’t anymore.
I started off pretty good. Half-assed it at the gym. Bought food from the grocery store, cooked it. Took a bath (by myself). And I started this blog. I then sat down to mediate (which I started doing in (1)). Inevitably, the phone rang. And the answering machine picked up. Fake Verizon left a fake message and the message went on and on and on.
Here I am trying to meditate…trying desperately to find my ZEN… but fake Verizon is leaving a five minute message on the answering machine, which I know will just lead to a perpetual beep beep beep. AND when if my dad hears the message, he’ll call fake Verizon back and give the fake caller his credit card information.
Not wanting my parents to be the subject of identity theft, I get up from my meditation go into the living room and hit DELETE. The answer machine in its computerized voice responds with “Delete OLD MESSAGES.”
I tried to do something–ANYTHING– to stop the machine from deleting old messages because that WAS NOT what I wanted. I wanted to delete the fake Verizon message and then go right back to my mediation. BUT NO. The archaic VTECH answering device deleted all the messages EXCEPT fake Verizon’s, including the last message that my family had received from my Granny.
Granny’s voice was deleted. Her sweet voice and her sweet Happy Anniversary! song.
I immediately went through several stages of grief: Disbelief–it didn’t actually delete HER message did it? If I keep checking, I’ll hear her voice again right?!? Anger–what the literal F Verizon? How is it possible that there is a fake Verizon calling from a phone number that registers as Verizon on the caller ID. Despair–I cry my eyeballs out. I’m so so so sad. Bargaining–I will google it and find out how to recover deleted messages from that answering machine. I will PAY to have the data recovered. . . . SOMEONE MUST be able to restore the message. Acceptance–I can’t recover it on my own. I don’t know if a data recovery expert can even if I pay him a bazillion dollars. We had good times and I’ll remember her. I didn’t mean to delete it. Accidents happen. I will (try) NOT to beat myself up anymore over this. I will (try) to accept that sometimes (often) I make mistakes. I accept my complete and utter failure at all things technology (this doesn’t DEFINE me). I will carry on.
And now I’ll go get my chatty kathy love bucket from daycare. Farewell Mommy Day.
Love,
J
A Life Created With Love 