#ULOG | I Just Lost The Last Five Years Of My Life

I want to cry. But I don’t have enough tears. For each story, article, poem or play that I remember, the dam in my eyes threaten to give way. I wish it is all a bad dream. If it is, then it is a dream I remember too vividly. It is a dream I don’t wish on my enemies. It is a dream I never want to remember.

I have been writing for about five years now. I write stories, poems, plays and articles. Writing is what pays my bills and helps me find fulfilment. Two days ago, I made a terrible mistake. A mistake that now costs me everything I’ve written with the last five years.

Here is my story

All He Wanted Was A Couple Of Videos

A few days ago, a very close friend of mine arrived at my apartment in the evening. He came to collect some video files. At the time I was very hungry and was thinking of what dinner would be. I am a terrible cook so I try to avoid cooking. Well, I was too hungry to attend to him so I directed him to my laptop. I showed him the video folder and left him to his own devices. And I stepped out to get some air as there was no electricity supply at the time.

When I returned to my one room apartment, I noticed my friend was a bit melancholic. I asked for the cause and he explained that he had done something terribly bad to my laptop. I am a very relaxed person; I try not to blow things out of proportion. I simply put on my glasses and inspected what damage had been done to my laptop.

There was no real damage. He had simply mistakenly changed the settings for my video folder. I use an old model Levono Thinkpad that runs on Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System. I could have had it upgraded to Windows 8 or 10, but Windows 7 is factory installed and I didn’t want to replace it with a cracked operating system (as I cannot afford to buy from Microsoft). For Windows 7, you can add locations to a folder. What he did was to add My Document Folder as a location in my video folder. That way, the files and folders in My Document Folder (Over 1000 files in all) were visible in the Video folder.

Obviously, there was nothing damaging in that. He simply made a mistake and I could correct it any time. I assured him that it was nothing serious. I asked him to continue his transfers, that I would correct the mistake later that night. I didn’t correct it that night though. I was pre-occupied with thoughts of dinner. And after dinner, I took a long trip to dreamland.

I Only Wanted An Organised System

Two nights ago, I was surfing through the files and folders on my laptop when I noticed how disorganised everything was. There were files and folders everywhere. Sometimes, a disorderly system pisses me off. That night was one of those times. I have a lot of junk on my laptop - drafts I no longer need, movies I didn’t enjoy, songs I don’t listen to, etc. So I began a cleaning process, one at a time.

Soon, I arrived at the video folder. I noticed how a folder that contained about 10 sub-folders suddenly had almost 30 folders and almost 400 files in the root folder alone. It was then I remembered what my friend had done. I simply went to My Document folder to ensure he didn’t move the files and folders. I was happy to see the files and folders in the My Document folder. It was then I made the costly mistake.

Shift + Delete

Because I felt the files and folders were in My Document folder, I decided to mark all of the files and folders in the video folder and then hit shift + delete. After all, the original files and folders would still be on my laptop. I ended the cleaning exercise and closed my laptop. I was wrong.

I opened the My Document Folder yesterday to locate some drafts but I found nothing. The entire folder was wiped clean. In that moment, I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t shout, frown or even cry. I simply shut down my laptop and left it alone.

Then later in the evening, the gravity of what happened suddenly hit me. It took more then 24 hours before my brain processed my enormous loss. At that point, I just lost the strength to do anything else.

In fact, it seems as if it just happened. The more I think about it, the more acute the pain becomes. Then it was just a mistake. Now, it's more than that

My 70,000 words Novel is Gone!

I have been working on a 70,000 words novel. It’s an epic story spiced with romance, war and magic. I’ve gotten to 8,000 words already. It’s something similar to the Drazen series I have been posting on Steemit. That is gone.

I have about 300 poems. I have actually written more than that but those are the ones I hope to publish one day. They are all gone too.

I also have a short story series, three actually. They were written as stand alone episodes with a loosely connected plot. They are all gone too.

I want to cry but I fear I don’t have enough tears. I can’t even bear to think about it.

Steemit: My Only Consolation

Thankfully, I have been posting some of my stories, poems, plays and articles on Steemit. That is my only consolation right now. I have a few files in my Google Drive and my phone storage. Beyond those, I have nothing.

I guess I have to start all over again.

I am seriously trying to find the silver lining in this cloud. I have told my friends about it. Someone is trying to see if he can help recover the files. I don’t know how it works or if I should exercise hope. Maybe I should just mourn my loss.

Thanks for reading my story

Blessings

[Image Source: All pictures were created/taken by me]