Mondays with Mike: Time after time

After a rugged spring—or the absence of a spring, more accurately—we’ve had a wonderfully mild summer here by Lake Michigan. Until a couple days ago, anyway, when the steam bath arrived. But it’ll be gone in a day or two, and not long after, summer will be gone, too.

How does this happen? Wasn’t it just May? This time thing gets weirder as I get older. As in, it seems to go faster. Of course, it’s not. But certainly the perception of time passing changes with age. Some would say that when you reach a point where you know there’s more behind you than ahead, that’s a game-changer.

I kind of think it’s a little more nuanced. Perhaps it’s that a given chunk of time, a day, a month, and a year—gets more and more diluted in importance as we age. At least in terms of subliminal perception.

That is, on a five year old’s birthday that fifth year constitutes 20 percent of their lives. What happened over that year—it was all a bigger deal to that five year old than say, my 60^th year on earth was to me.

Or maybe not.

But it’s pretty fascinating how we process time. Beth has the thing—both maddening and fun at times—where we’ll hear a song and the radio announcer will say, “That was from 1978!” After we both sigh, she’ll say something like, “That’d be like listening to the radio in 1978 and the DJ spinning a tune from 1938. You know, like big bands and stuff.”

Sometimes I get a little headache trying to wrap around her little time warps, but it is fascinating to ponder my parents hearing punk rock while remembering Glenn Miller.

I’d love to talk to them about it, but that time thing got in the way.