For those who tried to click on this yesterday, I do apologize. A technical glitch (ie. ID10T error) caused this post to temporarily post prematurely.

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Nothing quite says “good morning” like walking outside and realizing your car has been stolen and nothing quite makes finding the car bittersweet like discovering that the thief kept all of your electronics.

Granted the whole issue is 90% my fault. If I hadn’t decided to unpack my car in the morning because I was “tired” from a road trip, I’d still have my camera, IPad, and laptop. Lesson learned.

And I’d still have my video footage of my comedy as well as the boys high school graduations if I’d backed my camera up to more than just my laptop. But I didn’t.

Oh well.

Coulda woulda shoulda does nothing for how I feel about the whole situation though. Truth is, I feel violated.

Feeling violated is a perfectly normal response. Staying stuck in that feeling however, is not.

Even though I wrote a rather funny comedy bit about how the police officer didn’t believe my car was actually stolen and even though I got to tell my bit on a nationally syndicated radio show (Thank you Daren Streblow for that wonderful chance), it was months before I could tell that bit without my voice shaking.

I kept telling myself “It’s just stuff, no big deal. At least we got my car back” but I didn’t really believe it.

My “stuff” – my tapes, my stories, my photos, were stolen in July 2013. It is now March 2014 and only now have I saved up enough money to replace my lap top and my camera. I even took that as forgive me for this “a sign from God” that maybe I shouldn’t do comedy ever again.

I mean let’s face it, all proof that I’d ever done comedy was now gone.

We let fear get the best of us during the in between stage of theft and recovery. I live in Fort Knox. I no longer keep my front door unlocked. I keep lights on in my house, I leave nothing in my car and I don’t go anywhere alone.

I really needed to take back my peace of mind. I made the decision to replace what was stolen once and for all.

This is my first post on my new laptop. This is me telling whomever stole my stuff that you can’t steal my heart.

Honestly, I could have probably found a way to replace it sooner, but I think I was punishing myself for allowing it to be stolen in the first place and put it off.

I convinced myself that my $299 Samsung tablet was good enough. It wasn’t. Not for what I do anyway.

I write.

I do stand up comedy.

I take amazing photographs.

I love sitting on my back porch, writing in the sunshine.

I’m doing that today.

I win.

Question for you dear readers. Have you ever had anything stolen? How did you deal with it?