On the power of words...
I had it reiterated today that there are multiple definitions of the word 'format'.
Format: noun, a method of organizing data (as for storage)
Format: verb, to prepare (as a computer disk) for storing data in a particular format
I was exploring the menu on my camera on the way home from the airport and made the mistake of misconstruing what was meant by "Format: 3.6 Gb disk". There was no warning, but there was a very fast status bar that appeared after I mistakenly clicked OK. And then a message that said something like "format complete" or "disk formatted" appeared.
And then all my photos of the Smallest's birthday party were gone*. As were the photos of me with my mom at the airport today, seeing her off back to her home for the foreseeable future. As was the video of my mom hula hooping successfully in my living room after swearing up and down that she couldn't do it. And the photos of the boy colouring with his grandma.
I haven't cried that much in a long, long, long time.
It was odd... Despite having a wonderful visit with my mom, I could hear her sarcastic, chastising voice in my head, tape-loop-style, after I screwed up with the camera. And then it morphed into my grandmother's voice, disgusted and disappointed: "What's wrong with you? Where's your head at? Where are your brains?" I suddenly felt useless, worthless, demoralized, dejected, defective, a bad grand/daughter, a fuck-up, a failure.
Where did the self-castigation come from? was it my own subconscious using my grand/mother's voices and my perceived expectations that they have of me? was it my history of trying desperately to be please my mother so that she'd pay attention to me? I suddenly felt like I was in big, big trouble... but with whom? Myself? My mom/grandmother? My past?
I know that I felt freer to parent the Smallest this afternoon, after my mom left.
And I know I'm not going to tell her what happened until it's fixed because I don't want to know what her reaction would be.
*Data can be recovered after formatting a disk. As I understand it, formatting resets the permissions making it possible to write over the existing data, or sets certain values to zero, or something. But nothing is erased. And I shut off the camera after I realized what happened, so nothing has been written over the existing info. Whether ALL the data is recoverable is a different story. We'll see next week when I visit secretsoflife at the lab. Stay tuned for the next episode in the saga of My Digital-Age Woes.
Format: noun, a method of organizing data (as for storage)
Format: verb, to prepare (as a computer disk) for storing data in a particular format
I was exploring the menu on my camera on the way home from the airport and made the mistake of misconstruing what was meant by "Format: 3.6 Gb disk". There was no warning, but there was a very fast status bar that appeared after I mistakenly clicked OK. And then a message that said something like "format complete" or "disk formatted" appeared.
And then all my photos of the Smallest's birthday party were gone*. As were the photos of me with my mom at the airport today, seeing her off back to her home for the foreseeable future. As was the video of my mom hula hooping successfully in my living room after swearing up and down that she couldn't do it. And the photos of the boy colouring with his grandma.
I haven't cried that much in a long, long, long time.
It was odd... Despite having a wonderful visit with my mom, I could hear her sarcastic, chastising voice in my head, tape-loop-style, after I screwed up with the camera. And then it morphed into my grandmother's voice, disgusted and disappointed: "What's wrong with you? Where's your head at? Where are your brains?" I suddenly felt useless, worthless, demoralized, dejected, defective, a bad grand/daughter, a fuck-up, a failure.
Where did the self-castigation come from? was it my own subconscious using my grand/mother's voices and my perceived expectations that they have of me? was it my history of trying desperately to be please my mother so that she'd pay attention to me? I suddenly felt like I was in big, big trouble... but with whom? Myself? My mom/grandmother? My past?
I know that I felt freer to parent the Smallest this afternoon, after my mom left.
And I know I'm not going to tell her what happened until it's fixed because I don't want to know what her reaction would be.
*Data can be recovered after formatting a disk. As I understand it, formatting resets the permissions making it possible to write over the existing data, or sets certain values to zero, or something. But nothing is erased. And I shut off the camera after I realized what happened, so nothing has been written over the existing info. Whether ALL the data is recoverable is a different story. We'll see next week when I visit secretsoflife at the lab. Stay tuned for the next episode in the saga of My Digital-Age Woes.