Timeslip

Why is it that the older you get, the faster time seems to pass? This is a puzzle that has made me think a lot over the last few years, with each year passing making me puzzle over it more. As a child, the time between birthdays and Christmas etc seemed eternal, whereas even though we are now only midway through July, already I am panicking about Christmas 2010. I know, it's five months away for crying out loud, but from experience I know that those five months will soon be behind me and the joy (stress) of the festive season will be upon me. Its nuts! I have a birthday coming up (unfortunately), and it honestly doesn't seem like it has been a year since my last one. Looking back on it is like looking back at a day from a couple of weeks ago. What's up with that?

I noticed that time seemed to speed up when I hit thirty.  I mean, sure, the years went a little more swiftly in my twenties when compared to my childhood, but a year still felt like a relatively long time. But when I reached thirty, suddenly a year felt about half as long as it should be. And it also seems that time appears to go faster when you have things to do. Back in February (I think it was February anyway, it may have been last week for all I know), I made a five month plan with regards to my NaNo novel. I fully intended to edit  the messy bits and add another ten thousand words so that by the end of this month I would be ready to start trying to sell it.

Now, I have made decent progress on it considering how much of a procrastinator I am, but it is far from done. Of course, I can take off a couple of months because I was back on forth on different meds for my depression, and most days I didn't know whether I was coming or going. Definitely not the right frame of mind to be in when you want to edit a novel. But I was finally given meds that worked, and over the last three months I have gradually got better, and although I know I am not completely back to normal, I am not nearly as bad as I was.  So allowing for adjustments due to the meds thing, I guess I could say that the last ten weeks or so should have seen a lot of work done on my novel.

Well, I have worked on it, but not nearly as much as I should have. I keep thinking to myself that it is only March or April, and then stop short when I realise that we are now in July. Logically I know it is July, but it just doesn't feel like it is. The time going faster as we get older thing is definitely part of that, but the whole Being Out Of My Tree for the first third of this year has also added to the problem.

I'm still determined to get Cardiffella edited and ready for submission by September though. I have this funny feeling that September should be a good month to do it, and being a bit of a stickler for 'funny feelings', I want to go with my instinct.  I just hope that September doesn't arrive before next week or something, because at the rate time is slipping by me this year, it really wouldn't surprise me....