I am not happy about what I’ve discovered to be today’s “silver lining.”
For the last two weeks or so, my computer has been sluggish. Sometimes I move the mouse and the screen mouse doesn’t come along. Often I click on something, and nothing happens. I send an email… and watch the computer just whirl.
At first, I blamed it on the internet speed, because almost everything I am doing at the moment is on the web. We installed a super powerful, really, truly high speed connection a year ago. We seemed to have finally reached the point that all the devices could function, and the world-wide-wait had become a thing of the past.
It has been working fine, even with the additional load of more people home for the past weeks. But I was crawling.
Today, the internet connection showed complete disconnection, many times, throughout the night and the morning. I was actually kind of relieved: here was the problem. Fix this, and I’ll be set again. It must have just been building up for a while.
But after it was rebooted–and everyone else was back up and running–I continued to wait and wait.
Three and a half hours later, I hung up with the (infinitely patient–and local) tech. Turns out that my computer has viruses and malware–and is not backed up as I thought. It is not safe to have it connected to the internet until we do a complete data back up, and reinstall the operating system. I will also have to re-download and re-install all the programs, finding all the passwords and their registration keys. It will be hours upon hours of work.
Like I said at the beginning, I am not excited about this information.
But here’s the funny part: I am not mad. I am remarkably calm (because I live on my computer).
Instead of screaming that I can’t look at my computer, I find myself actually grateful. I reached a great tech, who has a plan. Data has not been lost. Perhaps after one full day, I’ll be back up.
I can’t help but to wonder if my little game of “find the silver lining” has caused a change in my outlook over all?
If that’s true, well, then: that’s one more silver lining to this whole experience!
