Framing the Years

When I look back on my early childhood, I know that back then I was aware of the passage of time: days, weeks, seasons...and even years.  But the actual time in my life when I first consciously became aware of how time is specifically numbered, i.e. by one's age, the calendar year, or grade level in school is problematic.  I can pinpoint events that happened when I was two to six years old: I remember the events but not necessarily the designated time in which they occurred...that I may have retroactively inserted into my memory.  I think I remember people telling me when I became three years old...and from then on I counted the years that way.  When I entered first grade in September 1962 (skipping kindergarten), my teacher Mrs. Parsons...perhaps the best one I had ever since...often had us pupils write the dates, including the year, on our papers.  And when my grandfather Papa (my mother's father) died on Christmas Day 1962, it was an important date marker in my mind.  As I grew older and progressed through school, my grade level and the calendar year were the dominant means by which I regarded the years, my age fading more and more into the background...I think that tended to set me apart to a great degree from my peers.  When I began to follow popular music and prime time television in earnest in 1964, and politics and sports in 1968, the calendar year designation became stronger with me.  Of course, after my school years grade level was meaningless and I was left with my age and the calendar year to frame time, along with the ages of my wife and children and how long we've been married...

Until I turned sixty last October, the year number has been my dominant point of reference in referring to the passage of time.  I not only tended to refer to events happening in the world around me in terms of the calendar year, but also those in my personal life.   But I know that I am entering a period in which my age will progressively matter more and more, although I would have preferred to just continue focusing on the calendar year to mark the passage of time. After all, there is that ultimate, unknown...but eventual...cap on one's own age somewhere in the approaching future while the calendar year just keeps going on and on and on...