Lost things

Some days the fact that I lost five years worth of photographs feels almost like a heart breaking. Sometimes like fog. Sometimes like nothing at all. This technology thing lacks permanence. I have nothing to hold.
When I was 16, somebody took all of the CD's out of my car. I had just organized them by frequency-of-listening first, and alphabetically second. And in just a single night they were all gone. The thief had taken them from my own driveway. I was sad, but also never learned to care about CD's again. They suddenly became something that could not really be kept, were meant to be lost, held little value or worth. Almost like they treated me poorly so I got revenge by never looking their way again. Who knows. 
But my photographs being gone. So many things from so many years that I will never have back. I can't find my trip to Costa Rica in 2005. Or my relationship with Ben. Or going to Australia. College. Paris. I better start making back ups. Some of my pictures I think are back--on some external somewhere in the house, recovered by Ric. But the ones on my little red external hard drive that has been missing ever since I moved out of the trailer...those are just forever gone. And I don't even know what they were! Only that I can't look back on them now and think "I remember that time!" Because I won't. I will just forget. 
There is something painless and equally painful about forgetting. An emptiness without explanation. Like almost hearing the hint of a song but never seeing the singer.

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