Time flies is not just something people say, it’s something they feel

We would never know; we will only ever be in our own bodies and minds and the closest we get to seeing anything through anybody else’s eyes is through the depth and level of skilled storytelling that they describe it to us.

Regardless of the variance from person to person, a minute as a child didn’t feel like a minute as an adult feels to me.

I’m not sure I ever really analysed it back then, though. I no doubt had less important and more fun things on my mind, like choreography for dance moves to try on the trampoline later or making witches’ brew in giant pails from water and colourful crayon shavings.

Anyway, I’m convinced time is speeding up.

It relentlessly marches on, quickening its pace despite our best efforts to slow it by being present in the moment and making the most of every one we’re granted.

Is that why it’s gathering momentum? Because we’re milking every minute and have filled our time so much, is there no such thing as spare time anymore?

I never thought I’d say it, but I’ve had moments lately when a huge part of me has missed being locked down in my house, just me and my kids. There were no appointments to keep; no time used applying make-up or bothering too much styling hair; no transit time required to get anywhere because there was nowhere to be.

Of course, I know that if another lockdown were to happen, the restless spirit in me would likely be complaining again after 24 hours. And I’m not sure my young would tolerate, much less survive, each other’s constant company now they’re a few years older, taller and quite a bit hairier.

Speaking of hair, I looked at myself in the mirror last week and noted just how dead my ends looked.

My hairdresser — who was (and remains) also my friend — left town at Christmas time. I’ve been in denial ever since.

I hadn’t been able to bring myself to consider a new one at all, much less put effort into finding one my youngest might let near his head with a pair of scissors.

My older two are all good with the change. They toddle themselves around to the barber shop whenever they start looking a bit woolly.

As my unimpressed reflection stared back, it dawned on me that Christmas wasn’t just a couple of months ago; it was over half a year ago.

So when I did whip my ‘baby’ (he’s 13) into a walk-in hairdresser he’d agreed to let cut his hair before he could change his mind, I spontaneously got mine trimmed, too.

I was embarrassed to admit to the hairdresser how long it had been until she herself told me her own hadn’t been cut since February, and that was only because there’d been a quiet moment in the salon and her boss sat her in the hot seat.

I actually felt like I’d cheated on my hairdresser even though she was the one who left me.

I wrote her a love letter telling her I’d moved on but it felt strange to be with someone else and that I’d always long for her to return.

We had a giggle, but I still pondered how almost eight months could have passed since I’d seen her smiling face.

As I called specialists to make appointments last week, I was shocked when they told me the next available appointments were next year.

‘How could there be no sooner appointments?’ I thought, still not registering properly that we’re closer to next year than we are distanced from last year.

Then, on the weekend, my L-plater got diverted into a breath-testing line at a booze bus, where I watched incredulously as police tested him — all the while blowing into my own straw from the passenger seat — shocked further that this kid, whom I vividly remember taking his first steps ‘just a couple of years ago’, has been earthside long enough to be this old already.

Not only old enough to operate a motor vehicle and be breath-tested while doing so, but grown enough for police to look at him and consider he could possibly be playing designated driver for his over-the-limit mum riding shotgun.

Of course, I do know this is standard procedure, not merely a personal judgment call made about us, but damn.

Police look at him and see a young man on the verge of adulthood. I look at him and still picture his chubby little legs waddling down the hallway when he was much shorter, in just a nappy on a hot day, dripping ice-cream on the tiles as he went. Because wasn’t that just last week?

Do I need a baby’s first breath test memento? Maybe I should have asked to keep the disposable straw and preserve it like I did the first lock of hair ever lopped from his head.

People say all sorts of eye-rolling clichés to fill gaps in conversations: ‘Lovely day today’, ‘Thank God it’s Friday’, ‘Don’t blink or you’ll miss it’.

We’re all guilty of it, and that’s okay because silence can be uncomfortable and one-word answers can seem rude.

However, when people drop the common old ‘Time flies’ chestnut, it hits differently these days.

I’m certain that one’s not just something they say.

It’s something they feel.

And if you want another overused cliché, you can have this one for free: There truly aren’t enough hours in a day.