When I was young, say about ten years old, time seemed to last forever. School would end near the end of June and wouldn’t start up again until early September. We would have about ten weeks off in the summer and the summer seemed to last forever. I would even get bored!
As I got older, it seemed like time sped up. Deadlines at school that were weeks away would suddenly be tomorrow. Work was more of the same. Where did all that time go? My wife and I recently celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary. “How could that be?”, we wondered. It seems like our wedding was only a few years ago. Our children, once just infants, are now older than we were when we were married. It seemed to happen in the blink of an eye.
I had hoped that with retirement, time would slow down again. After all, like when I was ten, there would be no rush to get stuff done, just a relaxed pace and quiet enjoyment. Alas, I have found that time still zooms by. If anything, it’s passing by even faster than before. I’ve been retired for just over five months now and yet it seems like I retired just a few weeks ago. My father tells me that time just continues its mad rush, constantly speeding up, and never relents. Sigh.
I think one of the reasons time keeps zooming by is that we don’t really slow down when we retire. I have music lessons and practice, web sites to manage, way too many years of postponed household projects to do, hockey, cycling, and so much more. My pace really hasn’t slowed much since I retired, so why should time slow down? My father, too, has remained very busy in retirement so it’s no surprise that he hasn’t seen time slow down either.
If you’re retired, what’s been your experience about the rush of time? If you’re not retired yet, what do you expect? Feel free to comment below.
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