Blog posts are a snapshot in time. Just as a photograph can tell you a lot about someone, so can a blog post, even when they talk about seemingly trivial things. Even memes, those things that seem to go around like a craze in primary school, can be meaningful.

I have been sorting through old drafts that were never published, and I found this one from October 2008:

Ten years ago I was:

1. Working on the implementation of a new computer system to prepare for Y2K
2. Sharing our new house with my sister’s family until theirs was ready to move into
3. Wondering how long my mother’s new marriage would last (not long)
4. Planting Australian natives in the garden
5. Spending too much money

Five things on today’s to-do list:

1. Give the cat his antibiotics (done)
2. Call my Dad to see how my step-mother is doing (trying)
3. Go and see my step-mother in hospital
4. Meet an old friend for lunch (will do)
5. Do some neglected housework (not done)

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. My sister’s brownies
2. Yoghurt
3. A banana, or some grapes
4. dry-roasted cashews
5. Did I mention my sister’s brownies?

Five places I have lived (in no particular order):

1. Beautiful leafy Hornsby in Sydney’s northern suburbs (for the last 20-odd years)
2. Dubbo in Central Western New South Wales (where I grew up)
3. A flat in Rockdale in Sydney’s south (while I was at uni)
4. A semi-detached house in inner-city Stanmore (when I was finishing uni and starting work)
5. Suva, Fiji (for about 6 months when I was 12)

Five jobs I have had:

1. Salesgirl at Woolworths Variety when I was 14 or 15
2. Sales assistant at Angus and Robertson book store in Dubbo between school and uni
3. Bar attendant at a couple of southern Sydney pubs while I was at uni
4. Clerk for the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs for a couple of years when I finished uni
5. Computer programmer at the gas company

Five places I would like to visit:

1. Ireland – Northern Ireland and the Republic
2. The National Archives of Fiji
3. Namibia (again)

None of this will have any significance for anyone outside of my family, I suspect. For my close family, however, it may mean a great deal. Not only does it say to anyone who is interested some details of my past and present life, but it has some bearing on other events that had great significance.

I suspect that I didn’t finish the post because of what was going on at the time. I did talk to my Dad about how my step-mother was doing, and I went to see her in hospital every day and sat with her while my sister, her daughter, raced home to get things done. We moved her home when the hospital could no longer do anything for her, and after a few days she passed away, in her own bed with her family around her. Only 11 days after I wrote this.

It still hurts that she was taken so soon. 60 is young, these days. Her father lived much, much longer.

I also remember meeting the old friend for lunch. He told me a trick to do with parking near the hospital before the afternoon peak hour.

It was a shock to read through this post after all this time. I thought I would share it with my family, and anyone else who is interested.