My computer was acting like a depressive on an episode: the slow movement, the inability to complete tasks once started, the inconvenient and irrational shutting down of the entire system during the most crucial part of the day...I couldn't take much more of this.
It started simply enough, I just wanted to delete a few unnecessary programs, install a few new ones, upgrade my antivirus software. But once in the programs list, I began to realize that I had no idea what anything on my computer actually did. Much like my life, the screen in front of me was an endless list of choices that I only knew how to deal with by trial and error. Unlike my life, with my computer I wasn't willing to take that risk. Too much money had been spent to inadvertantly turn it into a paperweight.
Now here's where the irrational part begins. Sitting there, in front of my pink Dell laptop wondering what step to take next, I began to sob. Not a frustrated, pouting sob, but an all-out waterworks of pain. My heart was breaking over an inanimate object and I had no idea why.
And then it hit me.
It wasn't about the computer at all, it was about my last relationship...my only real relationship ever. It had lasted almost 7 years and had ended [badly] just over a year before.
He was a computer expert. So in the past, any problem that had
occurred in that area had been quickly and efficiently
dealt with in a matter of minutes.
Apparently, while I had made peace with the larger issues of breaking up [i.e. the loneliness, the hatred of the new girl, the confusion over why love just disappears...], I had also transposed all that was left over into seemingly unrelated and insignificant areas, like my computer.
And actually, I found it rather fitting. My computer, like my life, was about to take on new tasks. It was in some ways new, but still contained much of the old information and habits. No matter how many new programs I uploaded into the system, there would always remain a few crucial basics that allowed the machine to
function normally.
Basically, I could change certain aspect of my life, as I had done for the past year, but there were other areas which were required to remain with me; not because I wanted them, but because, ultimately I needed them to continue functioning. I'd become fiercely independent over the past year in an effort to prove that I didn't need a man to survive, but there still remained a part of me that wanted to need someone. The romantic in me wouldn't die no matter how many viles of Romeo's poison I fed her. But maybe that was a good thing. Perhaps my idealist nature towards love was just part of my essential programing and without it, I would be nothing more than an expensive paperweight.
