Speed racing faster and faster (a few days before I turn 53)...

One thing about pretty much all photos or posts when I check out my facebook Memories lately is that many of them do not feel anywhere near as old as they tell me that they are. Like in terms of the passage of time and how my brain works. Sometimes photos from 5 Years Ago feel they were more like 2 Years Ago (or a little more or a little less, because numbers and time are ongoing confusion)...

Then I'll see some Memory from 1 or 2 Years Ago that feels like it was just a few months ago or less than half a year.

Is it like this for everyone? The older you get, the more time feels like it's speed racing by, faster and faster and faster?

For me, time already felt like it was moving fast when I was in my late teens. Then I didn't want my 4 year college experience to end as quickly as it felt like it did. Then suddenly I was about to turn 30 (which seemed way too old to me at that time). Then I was about to turn 40, but still felt like I was in good shape physically.

Then shortly after turning 43, I started to semi-randomly gain weight and have various other unenjoyable perimenopausal symptoms that lasted for years, but I don't want to get into that, other than that happened too past too.

Now I'll be turning 53 in just a few short days (well actually tomorrow).

And now I'm this (more than?) middle-aged woman who doesn't feel as old as I actually am mentally (whatever that means) and who doesn't feel as old as I look and who doesn't want to keep getting older so fast, but you either keep getting older or you die and I hate death (and the older you get, the more people you know die).

And back to how fast time goes. It's been moving fast for me for a long time, but in more recent years, it seems increasingly ridiculously faster.

On a side note, I've not been a fan of traditional holiday seasons for years, but anymore time seems to move so darn fast, that it's hard to tell the difference between one holiday season and the next, which in a way makes it feel even worse (or more meaningless?). Like let's just jumpstart from this Thanksgiving and Christmas to the next in the click of a finger.

Also since I'm one of those women who doesn't regularly buy new clothes (and who doesn't quickly and easily throw old things away), I might have variations of the same clothing on in multiple photos for an entire decade that feels like less than a year. Okay that last part might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I shall leave it at that for now...

Age and the speed racing of time (and poetry)...

I try not to go on about age too much (because I don't really care about age too much - except for when it comes to the ridiculously speed-racing passage of time and how fast every year seems to fly by - and how I think for a lot of us, every year goes by so fast that our age is older than we feel FOR YEARS). And then of course, further approaching the progression of impending death.

But since I just turned 51 this week and since I thus stated my age on a few photos I put up online, maybe that's part of the reason why a photo post from a poet friend showed up in my fb Newsfeed and said he was about to turn 31, which then caused me to feel a bit weird about him being so much younger than me (in terms of age, anyway), because I don't tend to think of or view people as being much younger or older, unless they're way younger or older (or act like a kid or a parent in all their interactions).

And so 30 doesn't sound particularly young or old to me; it just sounds like a number. But it's a number that's currently 20 years younger than my number, which escalates the speed-racing passage of time! And also, backtracking in time, I remember having a freak out when I was about to turn 30! And now I've just turned 51! And even though me being 30 feels like quite a while ago now and a whole different part of my life, it doesn't feel like more than 20 years ago! I mean, I still have a lot of significant memories associated with parts of my life in my 20's...and 30's...and 40's... but now I'm in a different decade already.

In a way, it feels a bit weird when a lot of the poets who are getting attention are now 20 years (or more than 20 years) younger than me. But I mean...I was writing and getting published 20 years ago (and more than 20 years ago) too. I was getting published in my twenties, too. But then even more in my thirties and beyond. I thought my poetry really started flourishing (as in, coming out more naturally) at age 33. I think my first full-length poetry book was published when I was 35. Prior to that, I'd had quite a few poetry chapbooks published.

I'm one of those writers who has always loved chapbooks, small presses, indie presses and always will. I think I'll always remain focused on chapbooks. I've had two chapbooks published this year, another one forthcoming soon, and another new chapbook manuscript that I'm currently submitting. I also have a collaborative full-length manuscript I'm submitting and an individual full-length manuscript in-progress, but I seem to have a harder time with full-length manuscripts, both in terms of assembling them (it just takes me a while) and in terms of submitting them (I'm not paying big reading fees or submitting to presses that don't even tell you what happens if they accept your manuscript or that only give you one free copy of your own book).

But now I'm rambling in a different direction when I was supposed to be talking about the speed racing of time. For example, my last individual full-length poetry book was published 5 years ago now and that does not feel like 5 years ago!