It’s been quite a day.
Some very big things have happened here in Ireland this weekend. I feel
I should be writing about them, saying my piece, doing my thing.
But, these
things, they’re so big and so close at hand that it’s hard to immediately get
my head around them in a way that would let me write anything worthwhile about
them. It’s probably best if I don’t.
So, what else happened this weekend then?
Let me think…
Wait, I know. We got a new laptop. That’s what happened.
It takes a long time for things to change around here. We’ve had our old
computer for so many years. But the old computer had never really been any use
and it was obviously now doing much, much more harm than good, so we finally decided
to get rid of it.
I’m very glad that we did.
Some people did not think it was a good idea to get rid of the old
computer and get a new laptop. But the old computer was so useless that, for
the longest time now, if we had to do something hard, we had to travel all the
way to the office to do it. Some people perhaps thought it was better if we continued
to travel to the office to do all the things we could not do on our old computer.
Maybe it meant going out in the storm and maybe it messed with our head and sometimes it even made us quite sick, but it was still better than getting a new laptop.
A new laptop would open up new possibilities, you see, and not all of
them completely attractive. We would be able to see things we wouldn’t otherwise
see, We would have to deal with things we wouldn’t otherwise have to deal with. Wouldn’t
it be better to just leave the comfortable old broken machine in place and let
it do whatever it could do and, in those times when it couldn’t do anything,
get on the road to the office where the necessary could always be done.
It was a thinking that prevailed for a surprisingly long time. But we
thought about it and we considered it very carefully and we finally took action
and now we have a new laptop to write on and to do other hard things on too. I’m
sitting here now and it’s working beautifully and I’m listening to some
peaceful music and it’s after midnight and I’m not really doing anything terribly
important right now but I know that if I have something hard to do - something
that really needs doing - I won’t have to go out in the cold and the damp to
travel to an office far away to get it done. I can get it done here, in the
safety and shelter of my home It still won’t be all that easy. It still
won’t be without heartache. It still won’t be without pain. And, of course, I can still just choose not to do it at all and I may very well do that. But at least, if I do choose to do it, it is my choice and I can
do it here in my place.
So that’s it. That’s what’s happened here in Ireland this weekend. A new
laptop.
It’s been a good day and I think our new laptop will lead on to even
better and brighter days ahead. I know that a lot of good people will really
grieve for the loss of our old PC and I don’t think they’ll ever come to love or
possibly even fully accept our new laptop. But I hope, over time, they will see how
much better and stronger we have become because we have our new laptop. I hope
they will see that it was ultimately a good decision, made by good people.
Will all that come to pass? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I can’t help but feel proud of our new laptop and of
the decision that led us to finally getting it. I feel we stood up for what we knew
needed to happen and that, by doing so, we played our part in making life that
little bit better.
But I think I’ll go to bed now.
It’s been quite a day.