Thomas still has pneumonia, and I’ve taken a chest cold. This seems to be my habit every other year or so–I am really hoping that this one won’t turn into pneumonia as well. I am not built well. At least my lungs. That’s what it feels like when you get a chest cold.

Last night I stayed up too late. I was coughing and dreading lying down, worried that I’d disturb Kel and keep her up. And my mind was already thinking about the full work week ahead. Things really swing back into motion full-time this week. Downtown was busier this morning on my drive in. It’s nice. The sun is back out, which is really nice. Dad said this weekend that something like six or seven of the last eight Fridays have been rainy. Maybe this chest cold is the result of a Vitamin D deficiency.

Anyway, to occupy myself, I went searching for something on my old blog. I can’t remember right now exactly what I was looking for, but I found a post from back when I was writing a lot of music. This was pre-kids, also known as the time in my life in which I had time for hobbies. My friend Brittany was writing a YA novel, and she had sent me drafts, and I’d started writing program music to accompany them–sort of like a soundtrack to a novel.

I’d written a post in 2010 describing one of the pieces I’d been working on, and it had a link to a long-forgotten part of my website that’s not even linked to anything anymore–just floating out there kind of like a digital island. Originally, I’d built my website with the focus of four areas: literary writing, video production, music, and this blog. It was a website, not a diary. That was back when…well, never mind.

But I found another post, something I’d never published on my blog, that described without sparing any little detail how I cultivated my music hobby. I’m pretty sure I drafted it on a long transcontinental flight–I went back and found the original material in a Word document that was created on a Sunday night, and if I remember correctly, I was flying to Seattle for work.

The post needs cleaning up, but I found it and backdated it on my old site, which is sort of like a giant file cabinet in the back room. All of those old posts simply redirect to this site. It seems prudent to pick up those digital breadcrumbs, or at least sweep them into a corner. I know the internet never forgets, but if I can challenge its memory just a bit, I will.

Reading that long history got me clicking around on a lot of other things from 2010 and 2011. December 2010 is now just a little more than eight years ago. These days, I’m inclined to think so what? Eight years isn’t that long.

Julia turns eight in two and a half months.

I have memories of when I was 16. Eight years was half a life then. And I remember–and can read journal entries from–when I was 24. Eight years was a third of a life. Right now it’s just a little more than a fifth. Which makes me think there ought to be a word for eight year spans and how if we’re lucky, that span diminishes with time. Surely this concept exists in some other country or culture and there’s a wonderful Japanese or German or Hindi word for it.

Anyway, I got to bed late. And I was restless and coughing and sputtering, and I know I kept Kelly awake, but we eventually fell asleep, and we all woke up on time, and even though it took a little gumption, I said a prayer and pulled myself out of bed and sent Julia and Thomas off to school and kissed Kel goodbye and took a hot shower and cuddled Annie when she woke up and fixed her breakfast and fed Taylor and did the dishes. Now we’re all at work and school, the leaf blowers are whining outside (it’s Monday at Mitchell), and the trash truck is making its rounds on Mulberry Street, and right now, we’re somewhere at the beginning, or the middle, or the end of some eight year stretch.