Basement Chronicles

Bad Sectors

"Give it up, throw your hats in the air. Change just has a way of saying we'll get out of here, But something tells me that you're too scared to go."

Hello. Its 3:10am, and I'm in a panic.

I have six windows open, each a failed attempt at trying to find a file on my computer. A search of my hard drive has turned up nothing. Even after reading the names of all the zip files on the drive, on the backup drive, jump drive, and online storage, nothing turns up.

I can't believe it. My precious is lost.

Ok, fine. I'll admit it. I'm weird about my computer. I have passwords for everything, all different, and all layered so that even if you get a password to the whole system you still need additional passwords to access its collected parts. My hard drive is specially encrypted so that information on it can only be read from this machine and no other. No shared files, no open ports on the firewall, the overkill 128-bit wireless network encryption key, and virus definitions updated nightly.

Why do I do this?

Lets start with the 4200 photos that I've taken since I got my digital camera sophomore year in high school, including recently the Basement Chronicles and vacation photos. There's also the skimpy music collection that I've heard at least twice all the way through. After that there's anything I've ever written, be it essays, reports, stories, or programs. There's also important documents, like my PFD forms, my resume, my college applications. Stuff that I really can't live without. This stuff has survived system crashes, hard drive failure, multiple operating systems, and multiple drives. I guess you could say that over the years I've become quite the archivist.

But now one of the most important things I saved is missing. When I say that I store everything that I've ever written, that also includes chat conversations, be they on MSN, AIM, IRC, etc. I've been saving these for years, pretty much since they started offering the option, and in some cases a little bit before. If you look back at these logs you'll see the great grand expanse of my social life, such as it is. Every late night conversation, every sobbing confession, every biting argument and bitter fight. All recorded in simple text files, appended to line after line, year after year. Think of it as a diary, except other people get to talk.

At some point, no, at a very particular point, I decided to archive a section of these logs permanently. To stop adding to the files and to start anew. Records show that the earliest conversation I had after this turnover was May 3rd, 2003, either pretty close to or just after graduation. I guess it makes sense. Graduating high school and turning over a new leaf and all, why not begin anew?

What I did was put everything in a compressed file. A zip archive, small, unassuming, named something weird so that even if you did come across it you would ignore it. I encrypted it with a password and hid it deep within the folder tree of my documents. Make 'em work for it.

You'd think the system would be infallible. Impenetrable. Impervious. And other alliterations. But no. Damnit, now its gone, lost to bitwise oblivion.

How did it fail? Who has access to my computer? Who knows my passwords? Who knows where to look?

I do. Just me. Yeah, this is where it gets weird.

Have you ever purposefully forgotten something? I know that makes no sense to read, but hear me out. The human mind is constantly recording and organizing information, whether it be thoughts, ideas, sensory perception, or emotion. All are etched somehow into our long term memory so that provided with the right prompt, we can retrieve most anything. Not all, though.

People forget things constantly. Names, faces, equations, locations. Things that aren't tied to every day life run the risk of becoming "orphaned data," data that has no relation to anything else, thus becomes meaningless and forgotten. This is why you can remember knowing something, but you can't retrieve it. There's a hole where that memory used to be, a severed connection where a bridge used to exist.

This is how you forget. And if you understand this, then you can forget most anything. But not all.

This is how I forgot.

One night long ago, probably getting close to 3:10am, I found the files again. I knew where to find them, recalled the password, and started reading again. Don't ask me why, maybe I was feeling nostalgic. Maybe I was looking for something. Trying to remember something. Whatever the reason, after I was done I deleted the file.

Why would I do that? Any number of reasons, I guess. Maybe the last time I looked I didn't like what I found. It is, after all, a pretty realistic account of my life. The only logs I've ever altered were long after I archived the files. Everything anybody ever said is right there in black and white. Maybe I thought what was recorded wasn't worth remembering. Or perhaps I thought that it would be better off forgotten.

The point is I forgot the reason. But I know that there was one.

I know that I forget things. It happens constantly. Names, faces, equations, locations. What I find important instead is how I remember things. And what bothers me about this is that now I can't tell if I am remembering things for what they were, or how I wanted them to be.

Ending my second year of college, I've decided to archive everything once again, saving it to every location possible in hopes of forgetting where all I put it in the event that I go on a deleting spree once more.

I choose now to see things how they are. That way the memories can't help but be the same.

--

I know that this isn't the greatest note to end a year with. I've now rewritten this Chronicle eight times over the course of this past week. I've learned now that I'm absolutely terrible at ending anything, hence this little post-script. Heh.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Anchorage this summer and seeing the family and friends that I have missed dearly. I think that this summer will be one to remember, despite a few folks that can't come home for very long.

As for the Chronicles themselves, they might go into hibernation for the warm summer months. I'll be spending near 8 hours a day on a computer at work, and I really can't see coming home to any more.

So with that, I bid you farewell, and to have a fine summer, wherever it may take you