Hilarie Burton reflects on how we experience time as fixed to our current age. At nine, the world feels nine; at thirty, balanced; at seventy, permanently old. She argues this trap in the present moment is actually the right way to appreciate where you are.
No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you're 9, you think you've always been 9 years old and will always be. When you're 30, it seems you've always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you turn 70, you are always and forever 70. You're in the present. You're trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen. And so I buy that. I think it's an accurate way of appreciating where you're at.
