You know how they say

that time moves more quickly, the older you get? I don't know who the infamous "they" are, and I don't really care; but I think they're right. Remember how the school year used to drag on and on forever and ever during elementary school? Then it went a little bit quicker in high school. Then you hit college.

Yeah. . .

At the end of each semester, I think about how I'm that much closer to graduation, still that much further from knowing what to know after graduating, and still haven't the slightest clue how the hell I wasted another semester.

For example: at the beginning of this semester, one of my neighbors placed a countdown on her door. It started with 40-some days on it. Then, I would walk by to go to work and it would suddenly be 20-some days. . . then 10. . . then 22 hours. And each time I noticed the change I just stopped in my tracks.

"No!" I thought. There's no way I've wasted 40-some days. There's no way I've been working non-stop (with the occasional exception for a Law & Order or Grey's Anatomy break, of course), been pulling all-nighters and popping caffeine pills, and I'm already half-done with the semester. What about all those projects that should be half-done by now? What about all those extra meetings I should be half-done with by now? And what the hell is going on with that myocardial infarction I requested!?

Then something weird happens. You keep going--as though you have some better alternative, right? And you forget yet again that your life is slipping quickly by, without even bothering to pause once in a while to let you breathe. No, you keep overbooking yourself and telling yourself that that to-do list will get done eventually. But who are you fooling?

I'm not fooling anyone. Want to know how I know? (Of course you do.) That pile of shoes that is a constant presence on my bedroom floor is actually living up to its title. My roommate calls it the "Migrating Shoe Pile." One day it's by the dresser, the next it's by the desk, then it's over by the closet. The thing is, I normally know where the shoes are because I put them there--wherever there happens to be. Lately though, I swear the shoes are migrating by themselves. I can't keep track of them.

Do you know how small dorm rooms are? It's impossible to lose a pair of shoes on our floor (we're cleaner than most college students; you can actually see the floor). . . but I've done it several times now.

I'm losing my mind. And I can't figure out when it happened.

I don't have time for this.