Time moves so quickly…Why is that?…Four days and counting…

It is a curious thing, this sense that time is slipping past more quickly now than it ever did before. I find myself reflecting on it almost daily when I upload a photo from 10 years ago, let alone when I review posts from 13 years ago, when we first started our nomadic journey.

In that moment, I am transported back, not vaguely or distantly, but vividly, as if I could step right into that scene and pick up where I left off. The colors, the expressions, even the emotions, feel close enough to touch. And yet, 13 full years have passed. Thirteen years that, when counted one by one, seem substantial, but when felt all at once, seem to have vanished in a blink.

I have often heard people say that time speeds up as we age, and for many years, I nodded politely without truly understanding. Now, I find myself wondering about it more seriously. Why does this happen? What shifts within us make a decade or more feel like a handful of fleeting moments?

Perhaps it has something to do with familiarity. When we are young, everything is new. Each experience stands alone, distinct and memorable. A single summer can feel endless because it is filled with firsts, first trips, first friendships, first discoveries about the world and about ourselves. Our minds are busy cataloging these moments, giving each one space and significance. Time stretches, not because there is more of it, but because we are noticing more within it.

As the years pass, life becomes more layered but also more familiar. We repeat patterns. We revisit places. Even as travelers, constantly moving, there is a certain sameness in the logistics, packing, unpacking, finding groceries, settling in, and moving on. The extraordinary becomes, in its own way, ordinary. Our brains, efficient as they are, stop marking each moment as something new. Days blend into weeks, weeks into months, and suddenly, we are looking back at a decade.

There is also the simple mathematics of it. When you are ten years old, one year is ten percent of your entire life. It is significant, weighty, impossible to overlook. When you are older, that same year becomes a much smaller fraction of your lived experience. It carries less relative weight, and perhaps that is why it seems to pass more quickly. It is not that time itself has changed, but our relationship to it has shifted.

Still, knowing this does not quite resolve the feeling. There is something both beautiful and unsettling about it. Beautiful because it means we have lived, we have accumulated years filled with memories, relationships, and stories. Unsettling because it reminds us how quickly it can all move along, whether we are paying attention or not.

When I look at those ten-year-old photos, I am struck by how recent everything feels. I can recall the conversations, the excitement of planning, the uncertainty of what lay ahead. In many ways, I feel like the same person. And yet, I know I am not. There have been countless small changes, lessons learned, and subtle shifts in perspective that have shaped who I am today. Those changes did not happen all at once, and perhaps that is why they are easy to overlook. They unfolded slowly, over time that seemed to disappear even as it was happening.

Maybe the real lesson in all of this is not to try to slow time down, because that may be beyond our control, but to notice it more. To pay attention to the details, the small moments that might otherwise slip by unnoticed. The morning coffee in a new place, the familiar comfort of a shared glance, the quiet satisfaction of an ordinary day that asks nothing more of us than to be present.

Time may feel like it is moving faster, but perhaps it is simply inviting us to be more deliberate in how we experience it. To hold onto the moments as they come, not tightly, but with awareness. Because one day, not so far from now, we will look back on today, and it too will feel like it happened just yesterday.

Be well.