I often find myself thinking about the past nostalgically. Not from the point of view that “back-then” everything was wonderful… or better… but, rather, from a sweet place of realizing how many experiences have been good ones – worthy of my remembering and feeling wistful about. What’s Your Grief’s recent post addresses mourning what was and why we do it.

Finally, I know there is a reason time seems to be flying!!!

MOURNING THE PASSAGE OF TIME

from What’s Your Grief column/Jun 6, 2019

I’ll be a year older next week as far as my license is concerned. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s almost my birthday. Though I wouldn’t say I look upon the day with dread, I’ve reached the point in my life where I’m never terribly thrilled to mark the passage of time.

Whether it’s my dog, my dad, or one of my daughters getting a year older – I greet milestones with mixed emotions. Yes, I know good things come with getting older and that the future is filled with possibilities (yadda yadda), but ultimately, I’m someone who would maybe like to see what it’s like for time to stand still for a little while.

I know those of you who have found peace with the passage of time may be thinking I’m being a little shortsighted, but I suspect just as many of you agree. Whenever (we) hold workshops and ask people about the losses they grieve, inevitably someone shares something like “the passage of time” or “getting older” or “the feeling that memories of my loved one are fading.”

Furthermore, I’d like to point out that a person can be content with the present and/or excited about the future and still mourn the past. For example, I love the relationship I have with my daughter now that she is older and independent, I’m excited for the possibilities that lie ahead of her in the future, but I also miss when she was a cute and cuddly little 4-year-old. If one is to fully embrace life and the people in it at different life stages, then they will also have to learn to mourn the past while also appreciating the present.

1. Deceased loved ones grow more distant.

Experiencing a sense of loss over the passage of time and, perhaps, getting older is extremely common. Though we can’t present a list of all the reasons why this might be so, we’d like to discuss a few of the more common time-related losses that a person may experience.

Being that we are a grief website, this is the most logical places to start because many of our readers are grieving the death of someone very important and significant. People who are grieving are especially susceptible to feeling grief over the passage of time because they may grapple with the sense that they put more distance between themselves and their deceased loved one with every year that goes by.

Not only may it feel disconcerting to think, “It’s been ‘X’ amount of years since my loved one was here on Earth”, one may also struggle with the sense that their memories are fading.  Though some memories seem vivid, others grow hazy, and it becomes more difficult to recall sensory memories like the sound of their loved one’s voice, the smell of their hair, or the feel of their embrace.

2. Our memories of the past grow more distant.

As noted above, fading memories may feel especially troubling to someone who is grieving because, in many ways, it can feel like this is all a person has.  That said, grief over the loss of memories can impact anyone – grieving or not. 

I, for one, am excessively nostalgic for the past – obviously, because I miss my mother – but also because I really miss shopping malls and phones that attach to the wall and the original Full House.  I don’t like the sense that my memories of the past are slipping away or, in many cases, gone. 

Research has shown that even our strongest memories change and degrade with time and it can feel disconcerting to lose memories for things that seemed significant and important. There is a mournful kind of yearning in trying to reconstruct the people, places, and moments of the past.

3. Time seems to fly by as we get older.

Do you ever feel like the older you get, the quicker time seems to pass?  Well, it turns out there are real scientific reasons for that! Though physical time is an objective fact, ‘mind time’ – i.e. your perception of time – is a little more subjective and as you get older, mind time seems to speed up.  I will let someone much smarter explain it via a quote from this article. (TB.com readers – you might want to read the entire article, it’s interesting!)

“Time is happening in the mind’s eye. It is related to the number of mental images the brain encounters and organizes and the state of our brains as we age. When we get older, the rate at which changes in mental images are perceived decreases because of several transforming physical features, including vision, brain complexity, and later in life, degradation of the pathways that transmit information. And this shift in image processing leads to the sense of time speeding up.”

And another from this article:

“The more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass. “Time is this rubbery thing…it stretches out when you really turn your brain resources on, and when you say, ‘Oh, I got this, everything is as expected,’ it shrinks up.””

So yeah, as we get older, it truly seems like we’re losing time faster.

4. Places change.

Some people don’t mind seeing non-human things like places and objects change. I am not one of those people. Not only do I feel that certain places and objects have a spirit all their own, but they are the props and backdrops involved in my most cherished memories.  If you’re like me, you get it.  We’ve written a bit on this topic so if you’re looking for more check out these articles:

5. We change as we grow older.

Aging is a mixed bag.  Many people feel that as they age they become wiser, stronger, less stressed (at a certain age), better at recognizing what matters, better at managing social conflicts, better at managing emotions, and so on.  In fact, many say that their happiness has increased as they have grown older.  

At the same time, aging brings many physical and cognitive changes that may cause a person to mourn for a time when they felt more healthy, independent, and indestructible. Again, a person doesn’t have to feel entirely one way or the other.  It is possible to appreciate the growth you’ve experienced with age, while also wishing you could scan a restaurant menu without your cheaters.

Changing roles and sense of purpose: Another way people change is in the roles they inhabit, so as time goes on a person may grieve the loss of certain roles and/or a sense of purpose. For example, a stay-at-home parent may grieve the loss of this role when their child leaves the home. Another example, a person may grieve their sense of purpose when they enter retirement after a long career.  As they say, when one door closes another one opens, so there may now be time for new roles and purpose, but this doesn’t mean you won’t experience grief over things that have changed.

6. Other people change.

Though you may feel the changes in your own reflection are gradual, the changes you observe in others can sometimes seem rapid. Kids grow into adults and parents grow elderly in a blink of an eye. People get sick, people get born, people die, and our friends come and they go. Such changes can cause a person to experience losses related to death, distance, estrangement, anticipatory grief, and grief over the transformation of a person who is still present.

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