I have a problem! It’s not like I am concerned about fumbling in my purse looking for car keys, or writing notes to myself so I won’t forget something, or having no idea why I entered a room—heck those things happen to everyone. Those pesky things mean little to me! My problem is on a bigger scale as I seem to misplace Time and Its Relationship To Actual Events. Not just a few days here and there but more alarmingly, I am losing weeks, months and even, on occasion, years when I try to place an event to a specific calendar time.
This past year was a revelation and a shock to me when the calendar clearly showed that my eldest child was sixty-one, but how can that possibly be? Didn’t I have a 70th birthday celebration just a” few” years ago? Um, no, the reality is, that birthday event was nearly 15 years ago. Where did all those intervening years go? My grandchildren are now 29, 26, 24 and soon to be 21. My reaction is: Impossible! They couldn’t possibly be young adults already! I certainly recall racing up 95N to see them all within hours of their birth and proudly marking off all their milestones, from T-ball games and beginning ballet, to scouts, soccer, hockey, middle school concerts, high school events and graduations, and cheering them on thru their college years and beyond. But those years have suddenly just compressed into a chunk of time without references to specific dates. How and when did it all happen? How is it I am really moving into my mid 80’s and how common is it to lose track of time? Am I just in denial that I am chronologically old or is there another reason?
In talking with my peer group, I find I am not alone in having one day blend into the next and marveling how they all can run-in together so quickly. There is some degree of comfort knowing this is happening in others. As retirees, living in an independent retirement community, we can tell you the tiniest details of our last visit with loved ones or a trip we recently took, but ask us what we ate two days ago or even what day it is and it can suddenly become like a Jeopardy challenge. Routines of course are helpful in keeping track—Tuesdays and Wednesdays are such-and such activity, Every other Wed. is wine with lunch, Every other Thursday my housekeeper comes, Friday is shopping day, Saturday’s I set up my “Pill box” for the week ahead, but those things tend to be the routine, week in and week out. There are numerous opportunities to breakout of the sameness, with off site excursions, physical exercise programs, entertainment, etc. But still, it is easy to lose individual references to the passing of time.
I began to research how we relate to time and discovered that Covid has surely played a huge role in our diminished perception of time. Two years ago, in the early months of its onset, Covid brought about periods of isolation, lockdowns and almost no person to person socializations. Physical contact was replaced by Zoom or Google Meets, and the lack of personal touch and social interactions ran contrary to human nature. The days were all typically the same, conversations took place on the phone or in texts, we ate by ourselves. We were in this situation “alone” yet we all collectively shared this unnatural lifestyle with others throughout the world. According to psychology professor Daniel Schacter at Harvard, “Distinctiveness improves memory but when each day feels the same, we lose our ability to distinguish between events…we cannot separate one from another…so we have more of muddled remembering.” Assistant professor Mariam Aly from Columbia states she too had trouble: “You know, did this happen last week or two weeks ago?” “Did this thing happen only three months ago—I thought it happened last year.” Bingo—welcome to my world of muddled, blurry dates versus time.
The amazing technology that produced vaccines and booster shots has eased the dramatic number of deaths but we continue to deal with variants and remain exposed to people who test positive. All parts of our society were, and continue to be, affected and the economy and economic well-being of many individuals suffered. Industries, healthcare facilities, and schools of all levels of learning had to develop innovative ways to carry on and those solutions became a world-wide game changer. Covid is now entering into its third year—there are still many uncertainties, political divisions, and conflicting viewpoints as to how we handle it in the future. As a result, we are trying to live in a “new normal” world which is confusing and not easy to navigate. We may prefer to withdraw, tune out and seek mindless entertainment.
Covid however, in my humble opinion, isn’t the only reason why time perception gets altered. Regardless of age, everyone realizes the truth of the proverb “Tempus Fugit” (Time Flies). It happens to all of us throughout our lives. Many parents find this true when their kindergarten-aged children go off to school for the first time, get their driver’s license, leave home to start their own lives, marry, become parents themselves. Some bemoan those signs of change but most accept them as milestones and the normal patterns of growth. We adapt to meet the challenges of the future and continue to engage. But if one lives long enough, it becomes more difficult to keep up with these challenges brought about by computers, social media, changing mores, virtual realities. Time seems to move too quickly to absorb them. A host of psychologists agree that that as we grow older, we perceive that time goes by faster, but there is no consensus as to the cause. I like the argument presented by Professor Adrian Bejan based on the physics of neural signal processing— simply put, he hypothesizes that our neurons cannot process visual information as quickly, because the complexities and networks in our brain keep increasing. Plus he believes aging in itself causes accumulated damage which contributes to the slow down, adding to the illusion that time speeds up as we age…This seems like a good explanation to me as to why I may not have accurate dates of when some things actually occurred.
So to my fellow peers and younger friends, fear not— we are not losing it! Due to Covid and physics, we are perfectly normal in our misperceptions of time and its relationship to mundane events. Now doesn’t that make you feel better?
Personally, I believe I might really be twelve years younger!
January 22, 2022
Yes, time does fly especially when we’re having fun! Are we having fun yet? 😆
It does seem like time flies! So grateful to have spent so much of my lifetime with you, Dad and our family!