End Of Year Musings

Well another year has just about passed. With each new year I always wonder if I'll see the next year. I just can't comprehend 2018 being here. Wasn't it just 1974 a few years ago? Didn't I used to wonder if I'd make it to year 2000? It seemed so far away at the time and so much had to go right for it to happen. Now it's so distant in the rear view mirror.

It's funny how so many of a persons personal timelines are centered around the year that they graduated from high school. But that's when things really began to change. The end of so many things in your world that have been constants and new beginnings taking over ..... routines, friends, surroundings, expectations. From that point on, time seems to accelerate greatly. And then the pace quickens with each new year. Before you know it, you're looking back on it all in amazement. It becomes more difficult to see much further ahead. Life becomes just one-day-at-a-time by that point.

I mean, I don't want to speak for everyone and as if that's a universal absolute truth, but it sure appears that way. 

There's things I'd like to experience either again or for a first time but if that doesn't happen, I'm good with it. To me, that's a positive outlook. 

(I don't know how the font changed here ..... something to do with copy and paste I'm sure ..... but I'll be damned if I'm going to go back and re-type this. I guess that also comes with each new year ..... increased stubbornness.)

Sometimes when I'm walking around town, a lady will pass by in the opposite direction, make eye contact and smile. Why? Maybe she can see past my cold and gruff exterior? One of these days, the instant will slow down enough that I just might think to offer a: "Hello," in return. Sometimes a simple smile from a stranger feels like enough.