She smiled and said,

"Time goes by so fast, doesn't it?"

I looked at her for a moment and answered,

"Not for me."

"My days feel very long."

She looked surprised.

Most people expect the same answer.

"Yes, life is flying by."

But that isn't how I experience it.

She had come because she was exhausted.

She struggled to fall asleep.

Her breathing was shallow.

She had been grinding her teeth for nearly thirty years.

When I asked whether she still spent a few quiet minutes each day simply sitting with herself, she answered almost innocently,

"Not recently."

Why?

Her daughter was about to leave home for university.

The house was being renovated.

There was always noise.

Always something to do.

She spoke as if life had become a long list of unfinished tasks.

Then she said something that stayed with me.

"Meditation needs dedicated time."

I wondered whether that was exactly the problem.

Somewhere along the way, rest had become another task to complete.

Many people tell me that time passes faster as they get older.

I am not sure that age is the reason.

Perhaps what disappears is not time itself.

Perhaps it is our attention.

When our minds are always occupied by tomorrow,

today becomes strangely invisible.

Days blend into weeks.

Weeks become years.

One morning we wake up and wonder where the last thirty years went.

The body notices this long before we do.

Breathing becomes shorter.

Sleep becomes lighter.

The jaw clenches through the night.

The shoulders remain raised even when there is nothing left to carry.

The body keeps preparing for the next thing,

without ever receiving permission to return to the present one.

I have noticed something different in my own life.

My days feel long.

Not because nothing happens.

Quite the opposite.

A single conversation with a patient can stay with me for hours.

A deep breath can completely change the atmosphere of a room.

Watching someone stand upright again after weeks of fear can make forty minutes feel wonderfully full.

Time has not slowed.

My attention has.

Perhaps healing is not only about reducing pain.

Perhaps it is also about recovering the ability to inhabit a single moment completely.

When that happens,

one breath is no longer just a breath.

One step is no longer just a step.

One ordinary afternoon is no longer something to rush through.

It becomes part of a life that is actually being lived.

The body has never counted years.

It has always counted moments of safety,

moments of breath,

moments of presence.

Perhaps that is why, when we finally return to our bodies,

time does not disappear.

It quietly comes home.