Sometimes get concerned about time/want to be "young&qu

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Hi,

Hello again. Of course, me being an Aspie means that I can sometimes get obsessed with things with my mind intensley focused on one thing and this can sometimes lead to worry over simple or irrational things. I have just turned 30 but I am still "young". Recently I was thinking about my (Aspie) friend (he is my best friend) - he is 8 years older than me. I met him at a social group for young people with Asperger's in 2003 so we have been friends for 7 years and he has been a great friend to me one of the best friend I have had in my life. I was reminicing a bit with him about our past and our childhood and comparing experinces and I asked to see some photos of him when he was a kid - and of course him being 8 years older than me, some of them where taken before I even existed! But it got me thinking deeply over the fact that he is such a good friend to be and how I manged to go over 20 years without ever meeting him and wondering what it would have been like if I had met him when I was say 5 or 10 years old when he was still a kid.

This brings me on to the fact that I sometimes get concerned about how fast time is going and since I have been in adulthood it seems to go over very fast indeed compared to what it was like when I was a kid, even though I know time runs at a constant rate for everyone on Earth in our frame of reference (laws of physics). It still bothers me now but not as much as it used too. Sometimes it can feel like every day goes over like a second in some respects and that leads me too worry about getting old sometimes. So back to the scenario outlined above about my friend I feel like wanting to turn the clock back to when I was about 7 years old and then setting out to find him and so I could be his friend from ealier on in my life, and it has depressed me a bit because I know that is impossible - violates the laws of physics. Any suggestions for coping with that or worrying about the passage of time/again in general - it would also be nice to hear from anyone who has similar thoughts to me in this respect.

On a matter of interest do you think thier could have been a possibility that I might have met or encounted my best friend before I met him in 2003 and did not even know about it. He lives about 20 miles from me and he has always lived in the same house over the course of my entire lifetime (I have lived in 3 houses in total) - sometimes I thought I might have had a mild sence of deja vu when looking at his photos as a kid!

Luke

Well, not to frighten or depress you, lukemc1980, but in spite of the science textbooks' assurance that the rate of our movement through time is constant, the human brain does not perceive it that way, and that rate only seems to accelerate as one ages - after a while it really does seem as though we're on some invisible rollercoaster.

Perhaps not surprising that as children it seemed that Christmases were separated by eternities, when all we did between them was goof off, play and wait for the next gift-opening high to come round, OTOH, when you're working long hours every day to pay for those gifts, Christmases can seem barely weeks apart. But it seems there's even more to it than that...that somehow, as we age, our brains actually process time differently...

The years between birth and 20 seem to go on almost forever, as year after year, we process more and more complex information in ever increasing amounts, observe the people and situations around us and come to terms with who we are and how we are expected to relate to it all...and finally, after a long, slow, interminable slog, we come at last to the threshold of adulthood...and once you get there, it doesn't seem like its such a big deal after all. In fact, it hardly feels any different than being a kid.

The next decade is fairly easy going, whether one continues the educational career or starts a working one, or both. Crises for the most part are minimal and usually resolve themselves in relatively short order. In spite of occasional setbacks, optimism comes fairly naturally - after all, you've still got your whole life ahead of you, whatever the problem, there's plenty of time to work it out. This grownup stuff is no big deal, every day offers plenty of time to get things done and even some left over to relax, you open your eyes each morning wondering what new adventure is coming next, then one morning there are little kids in the next room - and they're yours. Now you're 30.

The next decade you realize somewhat begrudgingly that life is no longer fun and games. You go to work every day - no summers off - answer to an @ssh*le whose primary preoccupation is how to use you to make him/herself more successful, and of course as the saying goes 'Sh*t rolls downhill'. You accrue debts that at first seem necessities but eventually just become one big burden: car payments, Insurance - both health and auto, DayCare, a Mortgage, Orthodontic surgery - you spend your weekends mowing and fixing things around the house. You see more bad plays, ball games and musicals than you ever thought you'd sit through, but what the hell, they're you're kids and you love 'em. The whole time, you secretly worry that your parenting skills are much weaker than your own folks' were and you're not sure if you're giving them everything they're going to need to survive in the world. Damn, look at the time - you're 40 - You'd swear you were only 30 just this morning.

Then there are the graduation ceremonies, college and weddings, the divorce of course, reinventing the ol' career track and WTF? Did your watch battery die? When did you turn 50? Crike, Its bedtime and you're sure you just finished breakfast a few minutes ago. You didn't get a damned thing done today that you meant to...you begin to wonder why you bother getting out of bed, it only makes your back ache anyhow...

Holy crap, how fast does this thing get? Slow down for gods' sakes - look there's a sign at the end of the track:

JUST A RIDE

Damn, Willard - that may be the best summary of life's progression I've ever read. If you ever write a book, let me know - I'll buy it.

Of course, you probably killed the thread, but still . . .

Actually, I'm working on a novel - but my ADHD makes the progress on it very slow. I've been a member here for over 2 years, and my avatar was chosen because it related to one of the characters in the story I'd had just started writing when I joined...if I spent as much time focused on the book as I do responding to threads here, it would be finished by now