JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: Every Year a Year Gets Shorter

When you’re a kid going to school you become aware of what a year means. It is an identifiable slice of your life. First grade. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Middle School. High School. Then comes going to college. Or military. Or one first, then the other. Then comes real adult life where you settle into decades. Your twenties. Your thirties. Your forties. Your fifties.

Then comes your Sixties. Now you really notice how fast a year goes by. It’s now such a tiny percentage of your life. Each year seemed a lot longer when you were under ten years old. Then they slowly got to be a little faster, but even through high school each year was identifiable as its own unit. Then comes our senior year of high school. We graduate. We turn eighteen. We officially become adults if not literally

Real life sets in. Getting a job. Getting a place to live. Becoming self sufficient. Having friends. Having relationships. Becoming known as an entity separate from your own nuclear family.

The twenties give rise to these very real milestones. By your thirties you are looking at truly adult life, with all the responsibilities. You are a parent. You are spouse. You hold an important position at work, in your career. You have things you do. You have things your kids do and you also do. You are busy living.

Then aches and pains begin to appear in your mid thirties. Those adult games of baseball, or basketball, or tennis become more taxing. Your body has peaked athletically, and through aches and pains you come to understand why professional athletes often retire in the thirties.

Your cutting back on physical activities adds weight and fat in places you don’t really want it. You begin to favor athletics which are not so taxing. Like golf. And maybe instead of walking you ride in a cart. Maybe drink a beverage or two.

Then comes your forties. Friends give you black balloons to herald your advancing to what is truly the second half of your life. You’re not a kid any more, as the old song said. Your middle age spread becomes more pronounced. Your kids are growing up or grown, and turn toward their own lives.

Along come your fifties. You may become a grandparent, or that might not happen until you reach your sixties. You decide you’re still young enough to reclaim some of you youthful fervor, your youthful body. You get in shape. You run. You walk. You ride a bike. You go to the gym and lift some weights. It helps, but time marches on.

Before you know it, you’re in your sixties. Wow, time really flies, whether you’re have fun or not. You still have to work. You’ve realized even if you workout, you cannot make your aging body actually get younger. Things breakdown. Things don’t work as well. Your doctor shows you x-rays of your body with arthritis obvious on bones, and compressed discs suggest you have to stop playing in those pickup games of basketball that you love, but which leave you aching terribly the next day. You’re getting OLD.

Just in time as your body is truly falling apart, Medicare kicks in. Even though it helps, there’s still that monthly charge, that deductible, the meds it doesn’t cover, and things it doesn’t cover like dental work, eye glasses, and hearing aids. But it’s something. You spend more and more time going to see doctors, going to see specialists, getting tests run, and dealing with your body’s undoing.

All the while years fly by faster. Now instead of noting each year that flies by, you note each decade. In your seventies, those sixties look good by comparison. Chronic illnesses let you know they’re here to stay. Your eyes, your ears, your heart, your joints, your muscles all betray you more and more. That 40 bottle package of pints of water you used to load easily becomes that 24 bottle package of pints of water you can barely get from the car to the house.

Friends start passing away with great regularity. You think “but I just saw him last …” and realize it was 5 years ago. Time compresses. You move slower but it moves faster.

Sometimes you want this Life Train to slow down, want these weeks and months not to fly by so fast. Time with grandchildren and children can help that, but they are so busy.

Try to find some joy in each day. Try to slow it down enough to distinguish it from the day before and the day after. Talk to people who mean something to you, whether in person, or by phone, or by text, or by post. Nurture those connections. We cannot stop this flight through life, but we make each day count.

Copyright 2026, Jim “Pappy” Moore. All rights reserved.