My partner looked at me over her coffee mug last Saturday and said, “We need to get the patio cushions to the basement and the pots into the garage this weekend.”
I just stared at her. Winterize? It seemed ridiculously early. The sun was shining. There were still a few leaves on the trees. So, I stared some more. She stared back.
(Don’t worry. This isn't a blog about a staring contest. But I was winning.)
Finally, I broke the silence. “But I haven’t even brought up the deck rug yet. Or that owl decoration for the table. And the Thermacell is charged. We could actually sit out there tonight without getting bitten by a mosquito.”
She kept staring at me, not in a "have you finally lost your mind?" kind of way, but with a loving, knowing look. It was the same look she gives me when I can't find my keys or when I insist on checking all the locks on the doors a hundred times. She has a way of letting me know I am loved, but also that maybe I am losing a battle with the obvious.
And then a depressing thought hit me: I could barely remember us using the patio all year. Did we even sit out there once? Surely, we must have. But when?
I was busy mentally listing everything we never used out here when she beat me to the punch.
“Because it’s November,” she said.
“But we never even used it!” I protested, knowing that I was being oddly defensive about our neglected outdoor space. “The citronella candle is still in the box!”
She took a sip of coffee. “Do you want to go get it now, then? Do you want to bring up the carpet, the owl, and the light for the corner of the deck?”
She asked this as if the answer was so obvious it would snap me back to reality. So I stared at her again. She stared back.
And then I did what I had to do. I ran the numbers. We have a fire table, but it’s out of propane. Still, I have my old ski pants, an L.L. Bean jacket, and hand warmers. So, yeah, I can bundle up, enjoy a cup of coffee, and feel totally in my element.
And then I remembered I'm the one who puts on a sweater in July if the air conditioning is too high and considers 70 degrees "chilly." My idea of "braving the elements" is going out to get the mail without a jacket.
Right. She's right.
“No,” I conceded. “I guess not. I’ll bring the stuff down.”
So, I began the big haul. With every trip to the basement, I realized I was storing away another "maybe tomorrow." Where did the summer even go? Was there a summer? It felt like I'd blinked in May and opened my eyes to November.
It got me thinking about how fast time slips away. It feels like I was just cleaning these chairs in the spring, and now I'm putting them into hibernation.
This feeling that life accelerates as we age is something almost everyone feels. It reminded me of something Michelle Obama shared about her mother, Marian Robinson, in her final days. Her mother said, "It went so fast." When Michelle asked what, she simply replied, "Life."
She was right. It does.
This isn't just a feeling; there's scientific evidence supporting it. You might have heard of "proportional theory," which proposes that as you age, each year makes up a smaller part of your life. For a 10-year-old, one year is 10% of their life. For a 60-year-old, it's only 1.6%. That makes sense on paper, but psychologists say what really matters is what our brains decide to hold onto.
Think about it: Childhood and young adulthood are full of firsts, like the first bike, first day of school, and first love. These new experiences help our brains create rich, detailed memories. As adults, we tend to fall into routines, such as bringing all the patio cushions to the basement even though summer clearly hasn't arrived yet (!). Since our brains don't need to record every detail of a typical Tuesday, those months and years can blend into one dull period. When we look back, childhood days filled with unique memories seem long and full, while the routine adult years appear to pass quickly.
So, there I was, carrying the last pot into the garage, having a full-blown midlife crisis right there on my empty patio. And that’s when I realized that my summer didn’t really vanish; it just got lost in the pile of work and to-do lists. Every trip to the basement felt like a tally of all the times we said, "We should sit outside," and then didn't.
I guess the lesson is that while I can't slow down time, I should make a point to use the patio next year. If life is going to pass by this quickly, I want it to be a blur of good moments, not just a pile of unused patio cushions.
Although I guess if I get really desperate this winter, I could always go down to the basement and sit on them. I might even light that citronella candle for some atmosphere. My partner would just walk in, give me that same long, loving look, and probably head back upstairs without saying a word.