January was just yesterday — and now it’s already April. Didn’t even blink, and the months slipped away. But think back to summer when I was nine — it was huge, way too big to grasp. That summer held so many days, you couldn’t fit that in three years now. Memory stretches out, holding details in the air: the smell of burnt grass, the creak of swings in the yard, a dumb plastic bucket of ice cream.

Why was time sticky and full back then, but now it just slips through my fingers? Why does a grown-up year feel like a blink? Seems like I call very different things “time” at different points in my life.

There’s the usual idea about proportions: a year for a kid is huge because it’s a big chunk of their life lived. For an adult, it’s just a couple of percent. Makes sense, but that only explains the calendar side. The feeling of time is way stranger.

I remember a vacation: a day felt long, sometimes too long; everything new pulled my attention to the details. But then that same vacation pops up a couple months later as just a few bright snapshots. A blink among months of routine. A workweek flies by unnoticed, but try to recall it — suddenly it’s endless and dull.

Turns out I have two timelines inside me: one drags me day to day (living time), the other collects the sediment of memories (memory time). Sometimes they almost match. More often they drift far apart.

Once I read about a fall from a great height — safe but scary. People say the event feels way longer than it really is. The brain cranks up the recording speed: more “frames,” more details stay in memory. That’s why scary or new moments feel extra long when we look back.

Maybe childhood lasted forever just because it was full of first times? Every day brought a discovery: a new friend, a new gum flavor, the first solo trip for bread. Now days blur together — wake up, work, home, sleep, repeat. The brain has nothing to save for long-term memory. That’s where the time-speeding trick comes from.

Digging deeper: kids don’t just feel time differently; they live outside our usual clock. No real future or past — just a big stretched-out “now.” Growing up adds layers of planning and memory; time gets linear and tight.

All those tips about “being in the moment” try to bring back that dense childhood now. But the harder you try to hold the moment — the faster it slips away. You can’t slow time down by will or tricks. The only way is to fill days with new stuff — do something for the first time at least once a month.

Looks like the only way to stretch life in your mind is to keep being a beginner to yourself. Pick up a new habit instead of the old routine; go somewhere you’ve never been; ask something important to someone you’ve known forever; dare to try a first time in years.

What makes now feel big? Maybe that very next first time.