01 May 2011

Of Free Time

For the past several days my computer has been in a state of heart failure.  Diagnosis: the only hope is for a hard-drive transplant.  About a year ago, if something like this had happened I would have immediately gone into freak-out mode, code red.  And, as the saying goes, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

As a result of the work God has been doing in my life, code red moments have been at an all-time low lately.  Thus, when I received the blue-screen-of-death, while I wanted my husband, the computer doctor, to do all he could to revive the machine, I also had a peace, knowing he would do the best he could but sometimes these things happen.  And stressing out wouldn't miraculously recover my lost documents.  So I shrugged - and went about my day.  Staring at a dead computer screen won't put cereal in my daughter's breakfast bowl or clean dishes in my cabinets.  I had other things to do.

The only interesting thing now, while we wait - wait for the next paycheck which may allow us to fix the problem at hand and return us once again to a home of his and hers computer stations - is just how much I have relied on that one small machine to fill my time.  Suddenly, in the evenings, while my husband plugs away at his website development, I find myself on the couch with little more than Netflix and an iPad (and, occasionally, a box of books which are begging to be assigned call numbers - oh the thrilling life of a church librarian).  I don't think I ever truly realized how many of my personal projects rely on a computer (with Word processing or other necessary software) for their fulfillment. 

Thus, with no other choice but to abandon those projects for the time-being, I find myself with a brand new, heretofore-foreign commodity at my disposal after the children are tucked into bed: free time.  What did people do in the days before laptops?  Also known as, how did my parents survive the eighties?

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