It is incredible how time passes us by so quickly. My family will be moving out of this place by the end of the year, although it seemed like just a while ago that we moved in. That was seven (eight?) years ago - how could the passage of seven years leave undimmed feelings I had in the first few weeks of moving in here?

It takes certain occasions like this to make you take note of the time elapsed between then and now - because in an ordinary day, time slips by unnoticed, like a thief in the night. Yet, even if we focused all our attention to the ineffable present moment, we will still be left clutching at straws, because there is absolutely nothing we can do to stem the inexorable flow of time, or to stall the passing of the years. It is like one of those elusive images you can only actually see from the corners of your eyes - turn your thoughts to the 'present' and it already is gone, leaving you to play an endless game of catch-up. For we may physically live in the present, but our lives, the real ones, exist only in the past.