As wave is driven by wave
And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead,
So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows,
Always, for ever and new. What was before
Is left behind; what never was is now;
And every passing moment is renewed.

–Ovid, Metamorphoses

It will come as no surprise to anyone who has reached a certain age that time seems to speed up as your life goes one. When you were a kid time seemed dense and infinite. Waiting a week or a month or, god forbid, a year for anything was excruciating as the minutes and hours seemed to move along like molasses in a frozen hourglass.

But as the years stack up behind you, the passage of time accelerates at an ever-increasing rate. Maybe it’s because we finally realize how limited and precious time is for any of us, after having whiled away so much of the time allotted to us.

I came to expect this speeding up of time as was aging. Could see it happening. But nothing prepared me for how much time has accelerated in these past few years. Maybe it’s because of the pandemic. I don’t know. But I bring up something that I think has occurred a year or two back and so often discover that it was five or six years in the past.

It seems so fresh, so recent– how could that time just slipped by unnoticed?

As always, I don’t really know. I guess it doesn’t matter outside of serving as a reminder of how rare and valuable our time in this world remains.

Perhaps it is our built-in memento mori.

Just an observation. And not an original one, at that. Just saying stuff this morning. That being said, here’s a Song that sums it all up. It’s Funny How Time Slips Away, the classic song from Willie Nelson. I don’t know that anyone does it better than Willie but this performance from Leon Bridges is wonderful. It feels elegant in the way it treats every moment of the song as precious as time itself.

If you can spare the time, give a listen.