Happy New Year! Usually not much changes for me from year to year, but 2013 had a lot to celebrate and of course some bittersweet moments as well.
It was a tradition growing up for my group of friends and I to stay over at our friend’s house and have a party in her basement. For us that meant music, board games, snacks, some pool, watching performance on the New Year’s Eve specials and just having a good time with our favorite people. As we got older, we tried to do the whole going out thing most of the time that failed rather miserably as the one place we always wanted to go but needed to be 21 closed the year before we would have been able to. But, as the saying goes, you live and learn.
It was during one of those basement parties that a friend suggested we all write what we are letting go of from the previous year or from even before that and put them in a box. We would then read them aloud and that was a way of letting go. It is something that I think is often better than New Year’s Resolutions which I tend to have a love/hate relationship with.
What I try to do is look at the positive from the past year and learn from the negative. One of the biggest changes for me in 2013 was becoming the editor of this paper. That brought on a whole world of change. I have enjoyed getting to know the area and the little quirks that make a town unique and the people that bring life to it. This position has made me come out of my shell and allowed me to not only put my education to good use, but to also start on making myself a better person.
I just wanted to thank all of the readers for the past year. It has been a pleasure to get to know you and the towns in the coverage area and see the amazing things that local people are doing. I am certainly looking forward to 2014 and all that it will bring.
I wish you a very happy new year and hope that it may be filled with more positive than negative and of course some surprises.
Shea Singley is the editor of The Hamburg Area Item. She can be reached at ssingley@berksmontnews.com.
