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I don't want to come across like the kind of person who asks idiotic questions on the internet, but, "Is it just me or were the last 20 years played on fast forward by accident?"
Actually that does feel like a long time ago. I think it's probably the last 18 years that have been on fast forward. The year I did "Oh Fuck I'm 40", started podcasting and dating my future wife. Which of those things is responsible for the lean on the fast forward button?
I can see why Catie would want to rush through it asap.
It's not that I don't remember anything of the last 18 years, but all my memories are of me moving very quickly. Sometimes the fast forward is on two times and I can more or less remember what was going on, but a lot of it was on twenty times and the action is blurred beyond recognition.
My fear is that someone is about to press the skip button and tomorrow I will wake up and I'll be 78 and sleeping in a wooden box, underground. What are the people of the future like? What a stupid place to live. Probably something to do with the nuclear war, I guess.
Every day One Drive sends me a message with photos of what I was doing on this day over the last eight or nine years. Even with the photos it's sometimes hard to remember what we were doing and there were lots of things I didn't photo. If only I had kept some kind of insane written record.
There's a big part of me that would love to jump forward ten years to see what kind of people the kids have become, but equally I realise I need to press the fucking pause button, or at least slow things down and appreciate these brilliant days with the family. Burn stuff into my memory and not let it rush past me like a speeding train, where each carriage is a new year and I catch a tiny momentary glimpse of what my kids look like each time.
Some people seem to think time goes by quicker because you're lived longer. When you were four a year was a quarter of your life, but when you're nearly 60 it's not even one fiftieth. I don't think that's it though. Time doesn't go faster just because you've experienced more time.
Maybe it's just that life is busier when you're an adult, but life felt slower than this in my thirties and it wasn't like I was doing nothing. I was juggling a lot, even just with my social life. I dated 50 women in 50 days once and was drunk throughout. Those 50 days seem longer than a lot of recent years.
I guess that since having kids my time has been filled with much more and a lot of repetitive stuff performed on nowhere near enough sleep. It's been the best eleven years of my life, but is that just because it feels like one year? And how do I know it has? I can't remember any of it. I suppose it's like going down a rollercoaster with your eyes shut. You might not know what just happened and it might be over in an instant, but you know exactly how you felt. Overwhelmed, terrified, a bit sick and thrilled.
I reckon someone has also been fiddling with the clocks and editing the calendars though.
