That nagging feeling
Time is flying away faster than I can comprehend. Past seems too distant. Future - even distant future - seems uncomfortably close.
This passage from Huxley’s Eyeless in Gaza does a better job than I can myself:
You’ve only been in the world for about seven thousand days together; and one has to have lived through at least ten thousand days before one begins to realize that there aren’t an infinite number of them and that you can’t do exactly what you want with them. I’ve been here more than thirteen thousand days, and the end’s visible, the boundless possibilites have narrowed down. One must cut according to one’s cloth; and one’s cloth is not only exiguous; it’s also of one special kind - and generally of poor quality at that. When one’s young, one thinks one can tailor one’s time into all sorts of splendid and fantastic garments - shakoes and chasubles and Ph.D. gowns; Nijinsky’s tights and Rimbaud’s slate-blue trousers and Garibalidi’s red shirt. But by the time you’ve lived ten thousand days, you begin to realize that you’ll be lucky if you succeed in cutting one decent workday suit out of the time at your disposal.