It is widely believed in the scientific community that time seems to move faster as you get older because your brain perceives familiar things differently from new things. As you get older, naturally you experience fewer new things. What surprises me most about this is how the time travel varies in waves.
That might be why that first year of the pandemic, pre-vaccine, seemed to go pretty fast. The routine was so repetitive, work during the day from home, kid is already home, weekend comes and you have your drinks and find some movies to watch, and if you stuck with it, your evening walks. There was not a lot of travel or events to break things up. But once the vaccinations started rolling and we better understood the risks, time slowed down quite a bit. Our little family returned to the theater, to concerts, theme parks, cruises, and regular meals out. These activities break up the daily routine because they include things you haven't seen before.
This year has been mostly like that. We started the year doing all of these events with the new theater opening, and none of the tours were repeats that we had already seen. I've been to three concerts this year, one of which was in Cleveland and arguably one of the best I've ever been to. I've been to the major theme parks here, obviously, but also made it back to Cedar Point for a few days. We did a cruise on a completely new cruise ship for the maiden voyage, which is something I will always treasure. Our friends from Norway stayed with us for a few days.
But since that cruise, two months ago, the routine has set in and time seems to be flying by. We're between theater seasons, we don't have any travel booked in the near future because of school, and we haven't been going to the parks, not even for the Food & Wine Festival, as much as we typically have, I guess mostly because of the daily rain and humidity. I find this very troubling and unsettling, like I'm not making the most of life.
It's the third quarter quiet, and I get into this lull every year. I don't take any real time off and we don't do stuff as much. Part of it is definitely school, because it's never easy, and it's really not easy at the start of the year. We can't really take him out to travel. As we get to late September, I know I need to break up the monotony, but I'm never sure how to do that in a way that's also inclusive of my little family. Actually, I take that back. One year we did a staycation at Coronado Springs, taking Simon to school while we did daytime stuff at the pool, the bar and the parks. Probably wasn't his favorite thing, but it sure provided a solid break for us.
The holidays aren't far away, and we'll get a little travel in then. But I need to figure out how to slow down time in the September to October range.
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