As the first marking period ends and 2021 draws to a close, we can’t help but notice that this year has moved awfully fast. Is 2021 going any faster than the years before? What is causing us to view the passage of time so different? 

This perspective seems to be a pattern among the FRHSD population: the year is flying past us. After 2020– the year that shall not be spoken of–, people have jumped back wholeheartedly into what they love: travel, movies, friends, parties, and much more. A whole section of our lives has been reintroduced rapidly. It seems the lost year caused us to take each day slower; therefore, in 2021, we’re in a hurry to “catch up.” 

Here are some thoughts from a few FRHSD students on the time passage of 2021:

• Dani Pont (Freehold Boro): “Oh yes, 100%. I feel like now that I’m not stuck at home and I can actually live my life again. Everything is happening so quickly, and I don’t have a chance to actually be a teenager.”
• Krishna Patel (Freehold Boro): “I feel like 2021 went by fast, mainly because many of us had such a fixation on waiting for everything to go back to normal, and we didn’t really live in the moment [in 2020] most of the time.”
• JV (Colts Neck): “I think it is moving too fast. Probably because most of the year [2020] I was inside because of COVID-19, so it does feel like it went by fast. I feel like I didn’t have time to do all the things I wanted to do this year.”
• GB (Freehold Township): “I think 2021 did feel like it went super fast just in general, I don’t really know why; it might be because we spent so much time in our own houses doing absolutely nothing last year. Now that we’re allowed to go places, we’ve all been trying to make up for lost time.”

The transition from a “year of nothing” to a “year of reopening” has caused many of us to feel like we’re losing time. For the upcoming 2022, we should all try to appreciate each moment more, instead of letting the time pass us by.