What my bookmarked pages reveal about me

Image | Andy Art

You can tell a lot about the person by the pages she bookmarks. 

That seems like a true statement, but I truly hope it isn’t. I know that some people curate their bookmarks. For every chosen one that makes the cut, there are hundreds left hanging in cyberspace. I am not one of those people. I bookmark, I bookmark. Like my battery’s dying. 

Case in point. Here’s a snapshot of my bookmark folders, the most permanent real estate of the bookmark territory:

Life organising 

Here we have just four bookmarks. Three budgeting worksheets I’ve never used, and a link to a mortgage calculator. I don’t have a mortgage. 

Yes, it’s an optimistically titled folder. 

Celebrant

(I should explain, a celebrant is someone who marries you. As in, the person who stands up front at your wedding ceremony. Rather than your spouse.) 

This folder links to sites from other celebrants, chock-a-block with slogans such as your wedding, your way and let’s craft your perfect day. 

“Why on earth does this folder exist?”, I hear you cry. There was a time in my life, not so long go, when I wanted to train as a celebrant. Reader, I never took that course.

Bookmarks bar

The mothership of the bookmarks. Sink below my online banking apps, and social media shortcuts, and you’ll unearth a lot of things. Things that could be in my house, but currently reside in my bookmarks bar. Expensive things. Out of stock things. A second-hand dresser that sold on Facebook Marketplace three months ago. Luxury silk pyjamas. 

The pop psychology bit 

After some light soul searching, I realised that these bookmarks are a hangover from someone I used to want to be. Someone who wore silk pyjamas and didn’t think for one second of the endless hand washing. Someone who spent Saturday afternoons in festoon-lighted barns, regaling a crowd with how Sam met Sarah at a Toploader gig. 

You could say my bookmarks list my failures. The things I never became. I was bookmarking instead of buying. Bookmarking instead of remembering. Bookmarking instead of acting. 

But, affording myself the benefit of the doubt, perhaps they show me striving for something. 

For me, committing something “to bookmark” is like putting a pin in it. Letting the ideas swill around. Do I really want to marry people? No, in the end I just want to connect with people, hear stories, and get to the heart of what matters to them. I realised that it’s what I do every day in my real job. Funny that.  

See, my bookmarks are my workings. Like me, they were never meant to be the finished product. And maybe I will get those silk pyjamas anyway.