PRE-FORGIVEN

I found lots of Waldos, but no MacBook!

Barbara reached across our king bed and placed a gentle hand on my ever shrinking right bicep, whispering a sleepy, “I love you”. It was around 4 am and I had been lying awake for some time. She sympathized. It was at that time that I understood the concept of pre-forgiveness. You see, a few years back she left an i-Pad in the seat pocket of the airplane when returning from a trip to see the grand-kiddies. At that time I had wisely suppressed thoughtless words. Now, it was my turn. Two days ago, I left my MacBook on a plane, a confounding fete I did not discover until we were back home. While disembarking, my mind must have been stuck somewhere between the thrill of a return trip on a 20% full flight and the dread of the jobs at home that typically follow a three-week journey. 

I had just left my laptop wedged alongside my armrest! This is where I typically hide it when those vigilant flight attendants make their final passes before touchdown. I hate being verbally reprimanded in public for my misdemeanors, but my sleeplessness would gladly have tolerated some verbal abuse to retain my most prized possession. My MacBook and I are normally inseparable. Now I am fearing she will be my Clementine. Barbara, rather than being as upset with me as I was, understood my pain. I was benefitting from pre-forgiveness.

Pre-forgiveness is different from forgiveness. Forgiveness is what God does when we believe in Him and we show remorse. It is different from what people try to do when they really don’t understand why they hurt so much following the action of others. This was much more about regret for what I had done to myself rather than feeling bad about what was done to another. Pre-forgiveness becomes easier as we age and yield to the inevitable synaptic lapses and shift away from things we can no longer do. We transition from using a written checklist to forgetting where we put our checklist. You can read more about checklists in a future article!

We are all going to forget things. We are all going to have our minds drift. Misplaced keys, cell phones (bless iCloud), checkbooks (hard to find what you rarely use these days); forgotten razors, passwords, birthdays….where you left your car!!!… it’s all going to happen. Your life will be more satisfying if you pre-forgive others as well as yourself. 

I write this article as I contemplate having to rewrite a couple of the other articles that were completed for tomorrow’s issue of the Photoboomers newletter.  Help!  But all will work out. Unfortunately, I have not routinely backed up my documents. Fortunately, I had backed up all but two days of my images from our Southeast U.S. trip on a hard drive which was still with me. You can see some of those in the Southeast Y’All Gallery. And, I may recover the laptop in Phoenix tomorrow morning if all goes well at the American Airlines Lost and Found.  Hint: Don’t leave something critical on a plane on a Friday afternoon. Lost and Found goes home for the weekend!

Pre-forgiveness will also help me as I work with other photographers. I have been there, done that. Accidentally erased images from my camera? Yep! Left a media card out of a camera? Yep! Forgotten to change my ISO after a night shoot? Yep! Left the cable to my lightning trigger at home? Yep. if it is possible, I likely have done it. So if you do blunder through a step or two, whether it be life in general or photography in particular, I understand. No problema. There are more important things in life, like “I love you!”

[postlog] 

Today is five days after I left my laptop on the plane. I received an email from American Airllines service company saying I could pick it up or have it shipped at my cost. I am delighted to do the latter as my schedule does not allow me to drive to Phoenix over the next several days. I rewrote the two articles two other articles to get the newsletter out just a day late which is pretty acceptable to me. It helped to discover that my 2012 MacBook could work for 10 minutes if I put it in the freezer for awhile first. The big deal is that there were a couple of images that I worked very hard to get...they will be added to the Southeast Gallery around Sunday night or Monday night. Lesson learned...back up often and not just my images. I discovered how important those other documents are. Have a great day!