Dear Time,

(Father Time?

Are you a dude? What even is time, anyway??)

We need to talk. I am not happy. I would like to lodge a formal complaint to the Karen in your HR department. This is an official escalation from me, the aggrieved party, to the chaotic neutral cosmic entity who's supposed to make sure that time passes in a way that makes sense.

The Problem

I have noticed in recent months (okay maybe years) that my perception of time has been slipping.

And it's not just time either, I've noticed other things too. Suddenly I sneeze too hard and, if I don't accidentally pee myself a little, pull this weird mystery muscle in the middle of my back that somehow connects to my lungs, and I have trouble breathing for two days.

Or I sleep wrong and now my shoulder is sore and my neck is pinched for a week. I go to play tennis like I usually do and all of a sudden I have these old people injuries like "tennis elbow" and "arthritis" like a Boomer, and it just can't be right!

I mean, I'm 28 still, right? It feels like only recently I was going out with friends, doing eight tequila shots and drinking 5 Bacardi and Cokes at night, and waking up the next morning all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for work, even though I only got 4 hours of sleep.

Now I have one drink, ONE, and I wake up with blurry vision and what feels like a tiny toddler inside of my head, beating my brain with a jackhammer. And on a sober morning it's a legit tiny toddler beating me with a toy hammer.

And then, upon hearing that "It's Gonna Be Me" is 25 years old this year, I started getting heart palpitations. What is going on?? It couldn't have been that long ago.

Also, Paul Rudd is 56 years old?!?

The Audacity of Math

You keep throwing numbers in my face like some smug accountant.

"Oh, it's 2025 now, so of course 2003 was 22 years ago." Yeah, okay, nerd. But we both know that in life years, it goes:

• 2010: Oh wow, that was like five years ago
• 2015: That was… maybe three years ago?
• 2020: The Year of Hell. I remember it well. It was, without a doubt, 2 years ago.

Today someone mentioned the 70s and I instantly thought, Oh, so about 30 years ago, only to be "Umm Actually'd" that the 70s were FIFTY years ago. 😱

The "Recent" Events List That Betrays Me

You know what was "recent" in my head?

• Flip phones
• Having energy
• "This Is How U Remind Me" being on the radio All. The. Time.
• Everyone wearing thick black eyeliner like we were raccoons auditioning for Panic! At The Disco
• MySpace profiles that autoplayed "Crank That (Soulja Boy)"
  • My editor just tried to fact check me that Soulja Boy was from the 2010s–when I showed him that it was in fact from 2007 he instantly died of old age
  • Also: why did MySpace stop being a thing?? Zuckerberg–can you, like, buy it and bring it back or something?
  • Also, fun fact: Soulja Boy is in jail now

Things That Trigger Me

• My teenage son telling me, "Your 'recent' memories are old enough to rent a car"
• Classic Rock radio stations playing Nirvana and Third Eye Blind (the 90s are not classic yet, you morons!)
• Remembering when text messages weren't unlimited
• Realizing that having 7 streaming subscriptions is more expensive than just having old-school cable
• Zoomer slang (wtf does "Bussin'" mean anyway??)
• Kids calling CDs and DVDs "vintage media"
• Remembering how every single math teacher insisted we wouldn't always have a calculator in our pockets 🙄
• New cars don't have CD players in them
• Suddenly relating to the parents in teen movies
  • I dare you not to take King Triton's side in The Little Mermaid now

In Conclusion

Time, I'm not asking for much. Just a little creative accounting. Let's round down.

Unless you want this to go to higher authorities—by which I mean the people still calling memes 'e-cards'—let's agree on this:

• 2003 was five years ago
• You can't convince me otherwise
• And if you try, I'll just say The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won Best Picture "like four Oscars ago"

Time, whoever you are, you owe me a decade of youth and two weeks of PTO.

Sincerely,

A Really, Really, Really Tired Millennial