By By Lindsey Sherrill
Staff Writer
As I write this column, it is almost exactly a year since my first column appeared. It seems like forever ago, yet it also seems like yesterday. It amazes me how quickly time flies and how years just seem to melt away. It also amazes me how much can happen in a year.
When I look back to where I was last year I see a totally different picture than I see this year. A lot has changed in my life in that time. Even I have changed. I'm not the same person I was a year ago. In some ways that's a great thing. In other ways I'm not so sure that is a good thing.
Yet I guess that's just how time is. So much happens so quickly, but in the scheme of things it's all just dust on the head of a pin. Strange to think about, isn't it? As I looked back this week at what I've done over the last year, I reread some of my old columns. Sometimes I laughed, sometimes I cried, and a few times I cringed. Did I honestly write a column on speckled peas?! And cleaning my room? Yet something strikes me as I read back. I noticed that my writing started out as being humorous and touching. I loved the writing and I loved writing for people. But as the year went by, I began to write less and less.
There began to be something harsh, almost cynical coming out in the later stuff. I wonder about that.
As I have changed and grown, have I let myself become jaded? What happened to the joy that was there last April? Have I really run out of things to say or have I just stopped wanting to say them?
I've had to stop and think about this. Does this change have to do with just my writing or have I let it creep into my thinking? Is it that I've let myself change this year when maybe I shouldn't have? Do we all do that with time? I think I'm learning that remembering the beauty of life is something that, sadly, we have to teach ourselves to do. As this next year begins, I'm hoping to remember that life is an adventure, not just a journey. I think I really believed that last year, and still do, but with the stresses of life have let it fall by the way side. Maybe I need to remember one of the many quotes I uses to write down for inspiration. This one, by Fannie Flagg in Welcome to the World, Baby Girl, was one of the first I wrote down when I first began writing.
"If you could stop time, when would you stop it?"
"'I think I'd just let it go on like it has been,' she replied."
I hate to take a chance on missing something good that might be coming up, just around the corner.
Lindsey Sherrill is a staff writer for The Atmore Advance. Her column appears on Wednesdays.