There is a question we all eventually ask. Sometimes it is barely more than a whisper. Sometimes it is asked with a jolt of disbelief, and sometimes with a laugh to disguise the ache beneath it.
That question: Where does the time go?
It is one of those phrases that slips out almost without thought, but lately it feels a little heavier, feels a little more insistent. Days slide into weeks, weeks roll into months, and before we have really found our footing, another year has disappeared behind us like a mile marker on a road we barely remember passing.
Time used to feel different.
When I was a child, summer stretched out like a beautiful, wide field, so endless. Waiting for a birthday felt like waiting for the moon to fall out of the sky. The school year dragged on, the holidays seemed to take forever to arrive, and every season announced itself with great fanfare. It felt like we had snow that meant something, heat that meant something, and autumn leaves that demanded our attention, if for nothing else than to make piles to jump in.
We lived inside each moment. We counted days.
Now, somehow, the days count us. Adulthood arrives with an invisible stopwatch. The hours that once lingered now seem to evaporate the moment we glance away. Mornings blur into commutes. Evenings blur into responsibilities. Weekends shrink as quickly as they appear. Our calendars fill themselves, our notifications multiply, and without meaning to, we find ourselves moving through life at double-time, like someone hit fast-forward without asking our permission.
Part of this, of course, is life’s fullness. Children grow, parents age, and jobs demand. Good things and hard things often come bundled together. A decade can be measured in milestones. We measure life by babies born, graduations celebrated, careers changed, homes purchased, and goodbyes said. In those seasons, time is not just passing. It is layering. It is adding up to a story we don’t always realize we are writing.
However, there is another aspect we often overlook.
The way distraction consumes time in tiny, imperceptible increments. We reach for our phones “just for a second,” and suddenly, half an hour is gone. We multitask ourselves into exhaustion, doing two or three things at once and savoring none of them. We rush from one obligation to another without allowing space to appreciate the quiet in between. We have trained ourselves to live on the surface of moments instead of sinking into them.
Then we look up and ask that familiar question: Where did the time go? It is as though it has vanished into thin air, but time does not really disappear. It gets spent. It can be traded. It goes exactly where we send it.
Still, recognizing that does not ease the sting of realizing how fast it all moves. We see it in the mirror. We see it in our children’s faces, and in the empty chairs at family gatherings. In the way a song from high school is now played on the “oldies” station. In the casual shock of discovering that something we swear happened “a few years ago” is pushing twenty. This hit hard this weekend. Our older daughter stopped by and had a desire to watch old family movies.
I remember doing this with my parents.
I do not remember the camera, but my dad had this big projector that rolled silent memories, like his reel-to-reel “tape” player. Of course, the old movies were silent. There was no sound, but there was this one pair of pants whose life was chronicled in those movies. First, he was wearing them standing by his what I can only assume was a new motorcycle. Then they appeared while he was playing with my little brother.
Finally, they had become cutoffs for the paint job that was going on that day.
At the time, there was no way to know it would be the pants. But once those old home movies were converted to VHS tape, they seemed to come to life. Similar to the videos we watched Sunday evening. And then it hit me, these moments were twenty years ago.
Time leaves its fingerprints everywhere. Maybe the question we really mean to ask isn’t “Where did the time go?” but rather, “How can I hold it more gently?” or “How can I be more present in it?” Because time, slippery as it feels, offers us moments every single day. It offers us moments to notice, moments to cherish, moments to anchor ourselves in the life we are living rather than the one we are rushing through.
It does not require a grand overhaul.
It starts with small things. Start the day sitting with your morning coffee before opening your email. Let a conversation linger instead of watching the clock. Take the long way home because the leaves look pretty this week. Say yes to the spontaneous dinner, or no to the obligation that does not matter as much as rest. Create a ritual that slows you down; perhaps take a walk, journal, pray, or enjoy a moment on a porch swing.
Time seems to expand when we look directly at it.
We can also choose to mark time more deliberately. Celebrate the small victories. Take photos, but also put the phone away and see the moment as it unfolds. Write down the memories you do not want to lose. Name the gratitude. Acknowledge the transitions, no matter how big or small. These are the threads that keep the years from unraveling into a blur.
No one gets to stop the clock, but we do get to notice its rhythm. We get to choose how we move with it. Maybe, at the end of each day, when we ask ourselves where the time went, we will have an answer we feel good about: I spent it well. I spent it with intention. I spent it on the people and things that matter.
Time will keep moving, fast, slow, sometimes both at once. The days will continue to fold into years, but if we meet them with a little presence and gratitude, maybe we won’t feel so startled when we look back. We will remember where the time went.
We were busy living it.
