On Jan. 1, 2018, I, Hillary Lutter, will have been Editor and Chief of the Sanborn Weekly Journal for 14 years. That will be my last day.
It’s been a unique, fun and very fulfilling experience, and I have enjoyed the loyalty and support of our great communities. It truly has been an interesting ride, and there’s been some awesome experiences along the way.
I believe it can take a trained eye to realize when something is finished; people tend to float through life doing what is familiar, shoving their true hopes aside in favor of the status quo. “Someday I’ll do X or Y,” when in reality someday often never comes.
Or maybe it’s just a mid-life crisis. Unbelievably to me, I’m not necessarily too young for one of those. Throughout the past year or so, I’ve come to realize I’m not too young for much of anything.
“Making memories.” This is a favorite saying these days, it seems. Everyone is “making memories” all over social media – and annoying the heck out of me. Why not say, “We are living. Look what we did in our lives today!” To me, the phrase “making memories” implies these events will never again take place, but they were fun while they lasted; sure glad we have a memory, because that’s all we’ll ever have.
Or maybe I’m just overthinking things in a negative voice. But seriously, why not just LIVE, because you’re able? No one knows how much time they have left. The important thing is to live each day with one simple goal: Be Happy Today.
I might be getting too philosophical just to say one thing, that it’s time for me to be finished with this newspaper. It’s taken a lot of searching to get here, and I do not take it lightly, as I know this may mean the end of a service business as old as the town of Woonsocket itself. But, here I am, and I have no regrets, and I have no guilt. At some point, one has to DO for themselves in a completely selfish way.
My husband and I have been running Badlands Agronomy for four years now, from two opposite ends of the state. Splitting my time has become unfair to Bryan, myself and our business, and it is well past time for me to put all my efforts into us.
A quote often attributed to Buddha (but not proven to really be from him) are words that run through my mind nearly every day lately: “The trouble is, you think you have time.”
I’ve come to realize my happiness, my health and my plans for the future are at stake, and these are things I can no longer ignore.
So, here it is: I have lost the ability to do this newspaper the justice it deserves. It’s time to pass the torch, or call it a day. The decision wasn’t easy, but it has come to a point where staying with it is no longer an option. That space between the rock and the hard place is not a good place to be, so I’m going to find a foothold and climb out of there… and what will be, will be.
I leave you with this, and I really hope you take a second and think about it:
Live life for the moment, not for the memories. Tomorrow is never guaranteed, so don’t wait too long to be HAPPY.
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