Trying to Hold Time
When I was seven, I told my mom that I wasn’t a kid anymore. I said it seriously, with full conviction. I told her I knew life came with responsibility, and I was ready to carry some of it. I don’t think I fully understood what I meant, but I felt it. Awareness that time was moving forward and that I had to grow up with it.
That’s one of my earliest memories of time—really noticing it. Not in the calendar sense, but in the way a child starts to grasp that life isn’t endless. I remember it hitting me even harder when I was nine. I’d look forward to something, usually a school field trip or summer vacation. Then, almost before it arrived, it was over. I’d find myself stunned by how quickly it all disappeared. Like I’d been holding my breath waiting for the moment, and then suddenly I was watching it dissolve in the rearview mirror.
Now I’m 26. Time doesn’t just move fast anymore every year feels like a blink. Holidays blur together. The seasons flip like pages in a book someone else is reading too fast. And I find myself trying to grab at seconds, to hold them in my hands, even though I know they’ll slip through anyway.
When I visited Santa Monica in LA not too long ago, I stood by the water watching the sunset. And all I could think—besides how beautiful it was—was how damn badly I wanted to just remember vividly that exact moment. To take the clearest full view mental screenshot. To somehow dig in and remember that moment for the rest of my life. It wasn’t just about the view. It wasn’t about not wanting another moment to pass. I knew it would become another memory so fast, I wanted it to be one that I really remembered.
Childhood is the training ground for nostalgia—we build our first mental scrapbook, and we also start realizing how quickly the pages turn. It’s not that we didn’t enjoy those moments. It’s that enjoyment and impermanence are inseparable. The more something means to you, the faster it seems to end.
People always say life is short. I used to wonder if that was just because it’s finite. But it’s not just about the total length—it’s about how much of it we feel. You now fully realize you can live 80 years and still feel like it all happened in the space between two blinks. Especially if you don’t take time to notice.
And that’s what I try to do now. Notice. Slow down when I can. Pay attention. Make things, share things, write things—not because they’ll last forever, but because the act of creating something is one way to stretch a moment just a little further. Sometimes, the only way to hold time is to leave a mark inside it.
I don’t have all the answers. I still rush through days I wish I hadn’t. I still find myself missing things as they’re happening. But I’m trying. Trying to live like time is something sacred. Trying to hold on—not to stop it, but to really be in it while it’s here.