What year is it?

As a child, it perplexed me when my parents could not remember what year they took a certain vacation, lived in a particular apartment, or had to pause for a moment to remember exactly how old their siblings are. Their response had always been that “the years just all start to blend together after awhile”.

The first time I consciously remember having this thought was while sitting in a hotel room on the way to Cape Cod in 1990. It was the first big family vacation our parents dared to take us on, and my dad blasted Raffi tapes the entire drive in hopes that the 12-hour road trip was not the worst decision he and my mom had made in their then six years of parenthood.

I don’t remember what I asked my dad that morning, but I do know it had something to do with him having to recall the time frame of an experience. After pondering the answer out loud for a minute, he turned to my mom for a second opinion as I sat on my roll-away wondering in amazement why this was such a difficult question.

Now, four years out of college and four years without distinct summer vacations or semester breaks to easily pinpoint experiences, I have started flashing back to this moment more than ever before. I have found myself waiting for the end of May when it’s mid-June, counting backwards two years from my age to find my brother’s age, and all the while thinking, “Oh my God. The years are all starting to blend together.”

In this moment, the only thing that freaks me out more is my ability to reference a moment that happened 20 years ago. “Twenty years” sounds much longer ago than the year 1990, considering my mind still tends to believe we have just entered the new millennium.