A fair warning in the opening, my column this week may be a little all over the place, but that is sort of a reflection of how I currently feel.
If you are expecting me to call out some sort of wrongdoing in the community this week, I hate to disappoint you. This past month has been a sort of cluster of the good, the bad and the confusing.
This time of year is usually my favorite time. I enjoy the change to colder weather and I like the way that it tends to slow everything down, at least until mid-November, though due to being more involved with election season than ever before, it seems, to me anyway, that everything sped up. I barely remember October.
I’ve also seen a lot of loss in these last few months. While I don’t want to somehow capitalize on the suffering of others, it has been a rough time for this community and me personally.
Losing people you care about and even people whom you are merely associated with is never easy and a large part of me has been so focused on the results of the election both locally and nationally that I haven’t had much time to stop and review how some losses have impacted me.
I’m certainly not trying to bum anyone out who is reading this and I know that this is a far cry from what my usual columns discuss, but as we edge ever closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas, holidays that often bring a lot of reflection of the year that has passed and your time spent with others.
I wonder if there are things in my life that I should have done differently. I also wonder what the rest of the year will hold for myself and those I care about and my thoughts begin to creep into what 2019 will bring.
People reflect on years the way they do most anything else by reflecting positively or negatively on them. They will say, “Oh, 2016 was really my year” or “I really hated 2014.” I think things are a little more complicated than that, but I will say that so far this year has been kind of all over the place. I’ve had some really great times and few that were not so great. I’ve made some great relationships with some wonderful people in this community and I’ve seen the community lose some wonderful people throughout the year.
I try to maintain my optimism and for the most part I do. I’ve had no cataclysmic tragedy occur within my immediate family or in my life that has caused me to look back with complete negativity and for the most part it has been a pretty decent time and I think it will probably stay that way.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that in this time of reflection of time gone, try to look at things as optimistically as possible and make sure that while you are still on this earth that you treat those whom you know in a way that you will reflect fondly on when they are gone.
gwilliams@blythevillecourier.com