And The Years Roll By

                                     And The Years Roll By


2016--Another New Year and it seems that as I get older time speeds up, going faster and faster--I know I am not alone in feeling his way, I've read it and heard my friends voice the same thoughts and yet a day is just a day, 24 hours of which we are generally awake for 16 to 18 hours, so how can it seem to fly by so quickly? A few days before the end of 2015 I decided that I would start sorting through the boxes of loose pictures that have been sitting in the basement for a long time--I started with some photo album pictures of my mother as a young woman graduating from basic training--during WWII she had joined the Navy along with several friends and there were many pictures of them in a large group, riding bicycles and...partying! They looked so young, so fresh so full of excitement for the future. In the blink of an eye she met my father, got married, had 3 children and started to grow older and now it's been over 10 years since she passed away; now it's me who is growing older.

From those pictures of my mother I moved on to the large number of photos of my oldest granddaughter--being new parents my daughter and her husband snapped a large number of pictures and printed sometimes up to 4 copies for grandparents and great grandparents. At times it seemed like they were fashion photographers clicking off pictures of her every move! I had somehow ended up with many of the duplicates and tried to discard the extras. When her sisters came along 2 years later there were not as many actual pictures, the parents having moved on to a video camera. Trite as it sounds, it seems like just yesterday that they were all small--now my oldest granddaughter is 21, in college studying abroad in Italy--her twin sisters are 18 and also in college. Before I know it they will be graduating and moving on to whatever lies ahead for them.

For a few days I felt melancholy and sad thinking about how quickly time has sped by (even though I know that it isn't moving any faster than it ever did) and how much older I have gotten. I don't make New Year's Resolutions anymore, but I do think I will try not to let these feelings overwhelm me.