It’s one of those things that you think will never happen to you.

You hear about how it happened to a friend.

You hear about how it happened to a colleague.

You hear about how it happened to a family member.

But you never think, or at least never wish that it would happen to you.

AND THEN. IT DOES.

Last week, my computer decided to give up. It decided to turn off forever. It was almost as if it sputtered out it’s last proverbial breath. I had been working on editing some photos and I went to restart my computer since it had been running really slowly. Before exporting them (photographers, you know what I mean). Ack! And when the computer didn’t restart, I felt a part of me die on the inside.

Luckily, I was able to snag an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store, and after speaking with one of the bespectacled bearded geeks (seriously, all the dudes had beards and glasses with plastic frames!), I learned that my logic board died. And for those, who like me, had no idea what that meant, a logic board is pretty important. As the Apple Genius explained it, it’s kinda like the heart–everything is plugged into it, and if it stops working, so does everything else.

Great, my laptop was toast.

Thankfully, I’m a serious backer-upper. And I can’t even begin to tell you how essential it is to back up your information. Whether it’s files, photos, or anything of importance to you, BACK IT UP! Please don’t tempt fate. I was so happy that I had made backing up my data a routine, because it is the main reason that I didn’t have a meltdown when my computer died. Seriously. Back it up. And if you own a Mac, they make it SO easy with Time Machine. And if you’re into online backups there’s services like Backblaze and Crashplan.

Because it’s going to happen. Sooner or later.

The silver lining to this whole ordeal was getting a new computer. Woo hoo! I had been saving up to get one, probably at the end of this year, but due to necessity, that day came a lot sooner! And it’s so nice to have a new computer that works at lightning speed and can handle Adobe programs. Being without a computer for five days, I quickly realized just how much I relied on it! I also realized that I need to keep documents I use a lot in the cloud — on Dropbox — another awesome service.

Has your computer ever crashed?

And if you take anything away from this post and my experience: BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!