Time is a strange and fascinating thing, not just in the way it moves, but in the way we choose to block it in our minds. As I was going through my old journals recently, renaming them, consolidating entries, and trying to bring some consistency to DayOne, I started realizing that the way I’ve measured time has changed with each stage of my life.
- 🏫 2018–2019: Junior Year (AHS)
- 🦠 2020–2021: Freshman Year (UCLA)
- 🤝🏽 2021–2022: Sophomore Year (UCLA)
- 🔬 2022–2023: Junior Year (UCLA)
- 🌍 2023: Study Abroad (UCLA)
- 🎓 2023–2024: Senior Year (UCLA)
- 🌉 2024–2025: 22 Years Old
At first, it seemed like a simple exercise in organization. I’m meticulous by nature, so it made sense to standardize the naming of my journals. But I quickly realized that I couldn’t apply one consistent format across the board for all of my journals because the very structure of how I’ve understood time has never stayed the same. Each chapter of life owned its own architecture which highlights something about the way we live and the moments we choose to remember.
Childhood: Seasons and Simplicity
When I was a kid, time was blocked in the simplest terms: seasons. Fall, winter, spring, summer. But more deeply than that, time was split into two distinct eras: when school was in session, and when it wasn’t. Summer was the golden time, a period filled with freedom, friends, and sunlight that felt like it stretched forever.
There was no sense of tracking time by calendar year or even age. The future didn’t matter in the way it does now because I wasn’t counting down to anything. Days weren’t building blocks; they just were. Each one stood on its own and I rarely paid attention to the date or even the day of the week. Time wasn’t linear, it was grounded, lived moment to moment.
Middle School and High School: The School Year as Identity
As I entered middle school and high school, my relationship with time began to shift. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about the seasons anymore, it was about the school year. I was no longer just a kid; I was a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, a senior. These labels weren’t just academic, they were deeply tied to identity, and a social hierarchy within school.
Everything revolved around these blocks of time. Summer was still a free zone, but even it became framed by its relationship to school: a break between grades. We’d say things like “before junior year” or “after senior prom,” and we all seemed to understand where that placed us on the timeline. Age didn’t matter as much as grade level. It was a shared language for where we were and where we were going.
College: Fragments and Fluidity
College maintained a similar four-year structure, but time started to fragment further. Now we spoke in quarters or semesters. “Fall quarter of freshman year.” “Spring of junior year.” And each of these units held its own universe of experiences: new friends, new classes, new weather, new versions of myself.
Time felt more fluid, and yet more detailed. I could recall not just the year, but the flavor of each quarter i.e. the energy of fall, the rush of spring. Each chapter of my life was not just a year, but a series of turning points, each tied to an academic season.
And then there was COVID, a complete disruption that shattered this framework altogether. During that time, days entirely lost their boundaries. With fewer people to meet and fewer places to go, time collapsed in on itself. Without the novelty of social interaction and the spontaneous chaos of campus life, time stopped feeling like a series of moments and more like one long, indistinguishable blur which is lowkey similar to…
Post-Grad: Routine and Ambiguity
Now, in post-grad life, time has taken on yet another form, one I’m still trying to understand. Without school, there’s no semester, no summer break, no “freshman” or “senior” identity. The structures that once helped define my pace are gone.
Instead, time feels tethered to the calendar year: January to December. Performance reviews, PTO balances, tax seasons, salary raises. These have become the new milestones. Age, too, carries more weight now. I think more often about how old I am, and what that’s supposed to mean. Yet, neither of these structures, calendar or age, feels as personal or natural as those I once used.
Post-grad life has a rhythm, but it’s far more repetitive. I see fewer people, experience fewer spontaneous moments. The predictability can be comforting, but also disorienting. The days blend together more easily now, and I find myself searching for new ways to block time, & new ways to feel its passage.
Will It Always Be Like This?
As I continue to think about this, I wonder whether I will always experience time this way from now on. Will I find new frameworks to mark the years maybe through projects, places I live, relationships, or general growth.
All I know is that our relationship with time is constantly evolving. We move from seasons to school years, from quarters to calendar years, always adapting our internal clocks to the shape of our lives. Maybe that’s the clearest marker of growth, not just what we do with our time, but how we define it.