I was standing at Doctor Coffee early this morning waiting for my latte order and skimming through the days paper when an old friend I hadn't seen for 6 or 7 years walked past and said g'day.
I won't mention his or her name, but when I asked how they were doing, it turned out not so well. Their husband/wife had left them a few years ago and basically taken everything including the super, he/she had move interstate, got into another relationship, but then their new partner had left them and taken the few remaining things that the first husband/wife hadn't.
Broke, he/she had returned to Tasmania, at over 50 he/she can't even get his/her small toe in the door looking for a new job, so unemployed, no house, no income, no assets he/she was walking past on their way past to see a psychiatrist, and whilst pleading that everything would be fine, with a jaunty shrug of the shoulders, the sheen in their eyes said otherwise.
My shame is that it was only after we'd said goodbye and I'd walked a minute down the road that I realised that they may really not have somewhere to sleep tonight, and I didn't even make the effort to go back and try and find them.
Kind of makes me and my problems seem insignificant.
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