I really dislike electronic waste. I work for a company that produces electronics (coming up on my eight-year anniversary in about a month, actually) and I’ve never much cared for how much stuff gets thrown out. I have a cell phone that is over six years old because it still works alright and I don’t want to add it to the collection of useless old devices I’m holding onto because they’re all too old or too broken to be donated to any charities or to be given to anyone but I don’t want to just toss them out. I am still using a TV that is about a decade old and wasn’t even a very good TV at that, back when I got it, because it still works just fine and I don’t want to add it to my growing collection of TVs that sit in various rooms of my apartment should I ever, for whatever reason, want a TV in that room. I gave my old Switch away to a friend rather than sell it because it was old, heavily used, and I didn’t know how much more life it had in it. I still have all my old iPods. I still have all my old CD players and stereos. I don’t throw electronics out because I don’t want them to be added to the ever-growing piles of electronic waste, but I’m rapidly reaching the point where this kind of behavior isn’t sustainable anymore. So, when I built my new computer in July, I had no where to put my old computer, no desire to continue using it for anything, and I didn’t want to just throw it out.

As I have been completely exhausted and drained since then–due to the arrival of my back problems, the arrival of my new mattress, and the transformation of my back problems–I wound up just leaving it on the floor near the table on which I’d built my new PC (and where I’d taken the two useful hard drives out of my old PC). I walked around it for months, occasionally moving it from one spot to another as I vacuumed, moved books around, or wanted use of my table. Recently, though, as my small group of local friends has tried to get a regular game night together again, one of us wound up being unable to participate because his laptop’s screen broke. After a couple day’s thought, I decided to talk to this friend about giving him my old computer. It would take a little bit of work and some expenses on his part to get it back into proper condition again, but I’d be able to at least get it running for him. He seemed interested, even after I told him about all the things he’d have to provide for himself, so I created a little to-do list for it and then promptly didn’t touch it again for almost a month. As my recent posts have suggested, despite finally being able to sleep a decent amount, I’m still running ever-lower on spoons and just didn’t have the energy to work on something like this until it moved from a “should do” task to a “must do” task. I even suggested that my friend come pick to pick it up and watch while I worked on it so he’d be able to see how to maintain it himself (as much as he needed to) and I’d have some kind of impetus and emotional support for doing a task that wouldn’t be too difficult but would still be mildly physically draining and moderately mentally draining.

That didn’t work out well for us either, on account of his work schedule and lack of easy access to a vehicle, but the week I took off of work (two weeks ago as you’re reading this) gave me the time to do the setup and cleaning and then, thanks to scheduling it out ahead of time, he had a chance to pick it up later that weekend. Since then, he seems to have gotten it up and running, though he has perhaps lost himself in video games he can now comfortably and easily play (my old PC, ancient as it was, still out-performed his laptop even when the laptop’s full screen worked) so I’ve had no confirmation that everything is up and running beyond him asking me what were the passwords I’d set up for him. So! Hopefully! Sometime in the next week! I’ll finally be able to have another game night with two of my local friends. I’m not going to get my hopes up, though, since I’m really tired of trying to make things happen and only ever getting silence or non-committal answers in return. I can’t seem to get to be a part of any gaming group without winding up as what sometimes feels like the only person who cares about making it happen with any kind of regularity. It really sucks to constantly have to fight for any kind of answers, regardless of that fact that the answers I usually get are negative ones. I don’t like feeling like the only person who is invested in my relationships and friendships and there’s nothing quite like being the only voice going “hey, let’s get together” in all of my social groups to drive that particular feeling home.

At least I got to give my old computer away to a good home. To let it live out its life in use rather than collecting dust in some unobtrusive corner of my apartment. As someone who can’t help but get attached to their electronics, to things they’ve spent years of their life with and that were essential lifelines during a time of severe isolation, I don’t really like the idea of throwing my computer away or selling it to some unknown person. My computer has been my primary connection to my friends and what communities I’ve got for almost a decade and the pandemic only heightened that, especially as the world has decided that exposing itself to a virus is the way forward while I still isolate in an effort to avoid getting sick or being permanently debilitated by something that might drain what little energy I’ve got left these days (I secretly fear that I got an asymptomatic or mild case of it and that all of my current building exhaustion, general pain, and sleep problems are a result of it, despite being able to tie them all pretty concretely and conclusively to the medications I’ve been taking for nearly fourteen months now). I spent a lot of time with that device and I’d much rather see it some place that it can still serve its intended function than disappeared into the unknown fog of the world beyond my ken. I have very little control over my life and the world at large, but at least I managed this much. I don’t know how long this feeling of satisfaction and peace will last me but, as my grandfather always said, “that’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.” And you know what? It sure is.