FMF: Anymore

I love the way this FMF prompt causes me to muse over words that ordinarily I don’t give much thought to.

‘No More Heroes Anymore’, was an song that came to mind and stayed there – I remember an art lesson at school when I designed a vinyl sleeve-cover for that record.

But the word ‘anymore’ has a kind of melancholy about it – a looking back to a season that has run it’s course and naturally ended or changed.

I don’t live there anymore.

I don’t make those anymore.

I don’t smoke anymore.

We don’t play that anymore.

We don’t walk that way anymore.

You don’t bring me flowers anymore.

It isn’t a decisive, determined choice now; it isn’t a ‘I’ve stopped doing that!’ or ‘I’m never doing that again.’

It’s almost like an oversight of something that has slipped into nostalgia.

But in recognising it, there is something hopeful in it.

If it is something that was good and somehow I’ve got out of the habit, I might look back and think, ‘I don’t visit Mrs X anymore/ memorise the psalms anymore, etc; but maybe I would like to start doing it again?’

I had lots of bad habits which I did deliberately quit, and thankfully it was long enough ago for me to look back with gratitude that I don’t need to do those things anymore.

(I am aware that I would still need to watch myself though, lest I be tempted afresh by complacency.)

But there are things I look back on with fondness, nostalgically, and think that maybe I would like to resume – maybe painting again, or start playing the keyboard again, or even start visiting Mrs X again?

So I might not do it anymore, but it need not always be a forever thing.

I can review my heart and situation and I can choose if I would like to resume some of the fun and healthy things that I once made time for?