For the past few days I've found myself asking "how is it already April?" It seems that all that's on our minds at the minute is summer exams and holidays, when it feels like Christmas was 5 minutes ago,.
Technically, your first year alive on this earth feeling longer than your 17th for example, makes sense if you look at it from a logical and mathematical viewpoint. Each year is a smaller proportion of your life as a whole.
Your 1st year = 100% of your life, therefore feels very very long.
Your 2nd year = 50% of your life in total, therefore feels shorter, but still very long.
Your 17th year = approximately 6% of your life so far, therefore feels very short in comparison.
I read this somewhere a while ago, and while it seems logical and makes sense to me, it does not make it any less scary.
We're constantly complaining ;
"Where have the weeks gone?"
"They'll have to make the weekends longer!"
There's not enough hours in the day!"
Time is sacred. We cannot get it back.
I believe this is something you learn more and more the older you get, the more you grow. We learn to manage our time, to be productive with it, to try and make sure we don't run out of it.
This brings me onto growth. Growth, just like the passing of time, is something we don't even realise is happening. We don't notice ourselves growing day by day.
When I was in first year, looking up at the fifth and sixth years, I felt as if I will never be that age. It just wasn't imaginable. Yet here I am. 17 years old and in fifth year. The thing is however, I don't feel as old as I thought those fifth year girls were when I was 12. Now when you flip it the other way around, it is just as hard to get your head around. I look at the first years walking the halls today and they seem so young. There is no way I was ever like that.
Now and then, it will hit you, how much you've grown. You'll see a picture of yourself and think, "Oh my God, I was such a baby!" Having a sister in first year, I hear all about what it's like to be a 12/13 year old again. The drama and the gossip. So and so is fighting with this person because of who someone sat beside on the bus yesterday. I often laugh listening to her, remembering when things like that used to bother me. Nowadays, I couldn't care less who sits where. I'm too busy worrying about "actual problems" such as where am I going to find the time to finish that blog for English.
These petty worries that seem to consume you in your early teen years all go away with maturity.
"What do I wear?"
"What does my hair look like?"
"What will they think of me?"
I don't care about that anymore.
That's not to say I'm all fully grown up now, been there, done that. There's still plenty of growing to be done.
Finally, that brings me onto the future. The most exciting and terrifying thing I can think of. For most of us reading this in 5th year English on a Tuesday morning in April, our worries all go something along the lines of "...Leaving Cert...college....what do I want to be?!"
But one of my main worries concerning the future is as follows:
"Is time going to continue to pass faster and faster as I grow more and more?
Are the years to come going to feel even shorter and are the days, weeks and months going to fly by at an exponentially increasing speed?"
Because if so, I'm going to need to hurry on and start using them wisely. Appreciating them more. Because, although- please God- I have a long time left on this planet, I don't want to be sitting in my armchair in the nursing home asking
"Where has all the time went?"
- A.L.