Thank you! Why wouldn't I just transfer everything on an external drive where I can restore from later? I already went through some processes with a trial a couple of weeks ago and did a bunch of cleaning of duplicate files etc and was going to go through some sifting and sorting. But with your suggestions now I am thinking I can just let it live on an external drive and bring things in as needed. 🤷🏻‍♀️
I have definitely gone through losing stuff in the last and there has been just once I wished I'd had a back up. It was for some precious pictures with my grandmother uploaded to flicker or something that transitioning into some other service and erased what I'd had there. That was like 20 years ago. 
Everything else a reset button has felt like it has served me. I've accepted it. I think this is indeed gonna be therapeutic. My plan was be to get on top of storage, files, security etc in November. I feel this suggestion may just make it easier.