By By Janet Little Cooper
While the New Year is already three days in the making, I can't help but wonder what happened to 2006. It was a good year, so where did it go and why did it pass so quickly.
I'll never understand where the time went and why it was just here yesterday and is already gone. When I was a child, I can remember time having no meaning to me. Days were limitless, weeks even longer and months were not even a concept that could be grasped. And Christmas and the last day of school before summer break, well, let's just say those two days seemed to take forever.
If only the carefree innocence of childhood could follow us all of our days making time something we have plenty of and possibly bring everyday life to a snail's pace.
The timelessness of my youth certainly ended when I became an adult and a mother. As I have grown older with each passing year, time has become the primary and determining factor that dictates my each and every second of daily life.
Just as I am writing this column at 6 a.m. in order to allow for the day's many activities, everything about my life is set to the gauge of a clock, second by passing second. And of course, as I have mentioned before, working for a newspaper requires even more attention to time and it's passing, as deadlines have to be met daily.
I deal with time constraints on a daily basis with my job. One eye is always on the clock or the calendar while the other types away on the computer. As editor, I am also always ahead of time. When you are sitting back enjoying your Wednesday edition of the Advance and reading this column, I am already out on interviews that are scheduled to appear in the next Wednesday edition. I work at least a week in advance, sometimes more.
Then as if that is not enough, I am the mother of two fabulous sons, Austin and Bryant. Nothing can mark time as perfectly as the changing faces and personalities of your own children as you watch them move from diapers to football shoulder pads.
Time is certainly something mother's want to hold onto when it comes to their children. Of course, as your children continue to grow at a rapid pace, so to does the parents and grandparents.
There is nothing like seeing a 20-year-old and all you can think of is when you changed their diaper or fed them formula. Where in heaven's name did the time go?
When you look in the mirror, you realize that all that time has apparently hit you head on. I mean how else can you explain the tiny lines outlining your eyes and the sparkling of gray hairs throughout your hair?
Just as our children change with each passing birthday, so do we as parents, except maybe a little faster depending on how well your children's passage of time is going.
This November marked my 39th birthday. I had always heard that 40 was the dead ringer, but for some reason I was wanting to stop time at 39 and quit counting. If the emotions accompanied with 40 are any harder than those at 39, I am officially not counting another birthday.
My passage from the teens, to the twenties and now in the thirties has sparked a desire within me however, to accomplish certain things and goals in my life before November of 2007 hits with the big 4-0.
My list is a bit expansive and maybe not even realistic, but one thing I have learned over time is that it goes much slower and smoother if you continue to reach for your dreams.
Here is to you as we both venture into this New Year and new phase of life. May your list of goals and dreams make 2007 as adventurous and memorable as that of years gone by.
Happy New Year!
Janet Little Cooper is editor of The Atmore Advance. She can be reached at 368-2123.