I have to imagine you’re all doing the same thing I’m doing these days: looking back at March 2020 and trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happened since, all while wondering how it can simultaneously feel like just last week and a different lifetime.
A year ago, I was using this space to talk about St. Patrick’s Day parades, big crawfish cookouts and Cher’s return to the Simmons Bank Arena. The next month I scrapped my editor’s letter on upcoming food festivals to talk about choosing to focus on what was in our control as we all tried to cope with our new reality.
While I certainly haven’t practiced that mindset every day of the past 12 months, and compounding crises made it seemingly impossible some days, I still believe there’s power in choice.
Today, as luck would have it, I’m choosing to celebrate something out of my control. No matter what we do or how we feel right now, a new season is coming. Spring, a time of renewal and hope, is on our doorstep, and I’m welcoming it with open arms.
So drink in the extra hours of sunshine, friends. Remember not everything out of our control is bad. And if you need to, tell yourself what I wrote here last year, and what I often have to remind myself: The letting go is the point.