In Loving Memory of My Laptop

I owe it all to her.

Just before Thanksgiving, my beloved laptop of seven years left us and it threw a wrench in everything I planned to write you - and everything else. I lost all my passwords, orphaned thoughts, and some unfinished pieces of writing.

What’s lost is lost.

Seven years ago, I sat on the bed in the spare bedroom of my cousin’s cozy upstairs apartment in a house on Rollins Street in Missoula, Montana where I unboxed my first MacBook (before “unboxings” were a thing). My life was in shambles. I was starting my final year of college and up to my neck in grief after losing my cousin - which I just now realized was exactly eight years ago today (when I am writing this, yesterday for you as you’re reading this).

Just days before, my parents had dropped me off for the school year at the campus apartment I shared with my grocery store boyfriend, who I found out - just hours after my parents left - was sharing it with another girl while I was gone for the summer, beginning the day I left town (I have to say, I’m really proud of how eloquently that came out).

So, in a heart-racing rage, I packed up random odds and ends of my belongings and took refuge at my cousin’s place before I realized he was the one who should move out. Grocery store boyfriends make great security blankets. Until they don’t. It was never love. It was convenient, and that’s no way to share your one wild and precious life.

And we are meant to share it. Don’t get it twisted - no matter what they say.

While I didn’t love him, I also I didn’t love myself. But a different story began the moment I opened that box. I remember seeing her shiny silver body sparkling in the sunlight that poured through the window and felt extremely out of place (this Oregon girl was in the mood for the darkest and dreariest day to match her insides). That perfect white apple sat smack-dab in the middle and I still remember the way it lit up when I. opened. her. up.

I remember running my fingers across her keys when I set my password and then closing my eyes and promising myself that now that I have her, I. would. write.

And write I did.

That’s where I first found myself. Sitting there on the page. Waiting all along. The words came out unhealed and undercooked, but they were there and they were mine.

I was mine.

We fell in love fast. She had me and I had her.

We started going to class together. She would walk home with me. We’d spend our evenings together. Just me, her, the warm glow of the screen, and an open page. And going to the grocery store alone became my new favorite thing (it still is one of my favorite things).

She held my notes, and my class lectures, and she helped me write the application for my first job. After graduation, she moved into Apartment 608 with me, and soon we were sleepless in Seattle.

My name is Meg after all - and it’s definitely because my Mom loves Meg Ryan. Who doesn’t?

And I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.

She’s joined me on every job I’ve ever had. Gone down the rabbit hole on every wild idea I’ve ever had. Moved with me from Seattle to Salt Lake, and back to Montana again. Traveled to China and Ireland with me. Helped me start a podcast (Peep The Spark Podcast). Helped me become a bonafide entrepreneur overnight in the middle of the pandemic.

And she was right in front of me when I started Field Notes.

I owe it all to her - my career, my life, and who I share my life with. Because back in Seattle, when she could see that I finally really truly loved myself, she encouraged me to let go and let myself fall headfirst into love with another.

Now, he’s my husband.

A few Tuesdays ago, she turned on for the last time, then she flashed her screen and said goodbye. I tried to save her, but it was time. The end of an era. A mile marker of sorts. And all I can say is that it all turned out better than the girl sitting cross-legged with a raw heart in the spare bedroom of her cousin’s apartment could have ever dreamed.

I would tell her:

Sweet girl, it will all turn out better than you can even imagine. Because when this laptop says goodbye, you’ll have an established career. You’ll have traveled the world. You will have already done many of the things you’ve always wanted to do and more. You’ll live in your very own home in Montana with the yellow puppy you used to dream about every Christmas when you were little.

You’ll be married to your favorite person who you used to go rock-climbing with on Thursday nights. In fact, he’ll be back this spring. And by summer, he’ll fly out to Seattle, where you’ll be living, just to tell you that he’s loved you since the moment he saw you; that he knows “not to let a good thing get away.”

When this laptop says goodbye, he will meticulously research all the options for you (because he’ll know how much it would overwhelm you) and then he will go to the ends of the earth to get a new one in your hands four days later - case and screen-protector included (because he’ll also know how much even the slightest imperfection will drive you crazy - but you’re working on that).

And then on the first Monday of December, you’ll find yourself sitting behind your new laptop in the window of a coffee shop in the heart of Missoula where it all began

and

you’ll be a writer.

---

written while listening to “Liability” by Lorde - a song that has it’s name all over 2017 me. special emphasis on the imagery of a girl coming home into the arms of the girl that she loves, slow dancing in the living room, “but all that a stranger would see is one girl swaying alone, stroking her cheek.”