As the clock strikes midnight on 31 December to usher us into the new roaring 20s, and probably in the hours and days before, I already know what’ll be said.
It’ll be said over and over in lounges and on balconies and under fireworks and next to log fires across the globe, before and after hands are interlaced and Auld Lang Syne is sung.
And it’ll be said by every generation over the age of about 26.
Where has all the time gone?
For those sober enough to remember the year, it’ll be:
How is it 2020 already?
And for the hyperperceptive, it’ll be:
Where has the decade gone?
Gesticulations to accompany this phrase will not negate its triteness. They’ll include palms overturned and out to the side, heads shaking slowly, backs rubbed lovingly and, for the eccentric, heads scratched with affected curiosity. Nor will sound effects: an audible tut, a camp sigh.
Where has all the time gone (henceforth, WHATTG) has become one of the most hackneyed phrases in the English language, and I loathe it with unreasonable fervour.
I realise, though, I’m being prematurely cantankerous here. I’m 37. This stuff really shouldn’t irk me like it does till we’re at least in the next swinging 60s.
The term is innocuous and even affectionate, often said as a child grows up too quickly – before you know it they’ve got their first tooth, are at school, are pillaging your wifi. Where has all the time gone, eh?
There are variants. How is she / he 6/7/8+ already? “How am I 30/40/50/60/70+...already?”
But it almost always is accompanied by WHATTG? And WHATTG’s sister phrase, hasn’t it gone quickly?
The question is deceptive. It looks rhetorical, requiring only silent assent. I know, WHATTG? is the response silently inferred by the return of a smile or a head shake or two mirrored outstretched palms.
But while yours are outstretched, mine are wringing. I want to do what you must never do with a rhetorical question. I want to answer it.
Where has the decade gone?
It has gone into life and sleep and exercise and boredom and adrenaline and procrastination and book-reading and Netflix/chilling and feelings and watching Stephen Sondheim musicals and scrolling through Facebook and turning out the odd pithy bon mot for the Guardian. It has gone into one-night stands and surprise, inconvenient relationships and I’m-not-really-sure-what-the-point-is-anymore breakups and then a Spotify list simply and dramatically titled “emerging” and played on repeat until every lyric has lifted me into the next hour after the last one was excruciating. It has gone into moving squillions of miles across the world to Australia and 16 long-haul trips and eight departure lounge goodbyes so painful, I’ve now banned everyone from coming to the airport with me for fear the guilt would envelope me. It has gone, in short, into being human.
That’s where the time’s gone, Aunty Sue. Hbu?
Many language lovers hate cliches as much as we sometimes rely on them for clear and effective communication. The reason this one infuriates is because it’s wistful bordering on wasteful. It implies we’re all zombies, letting life pass us by: missing opportunities; not appreciating moments; nonchalant and ungrateful for the gift of life itself. Barely conscious but for our yawns.
Well excuse me for rejecting this soporific assessment on what it is to be human. WHATTG? I lived every second of it. That’s what I say in response these days.
It’s also an affront to common sense. We’re constantly in a state of stupor, baffled and confused about it. Literally nothing is more inevitable or constant than the passage of time. Our shock demeans us.
As for the pace of its passage, it’s almost taboo now to admit it went anything other than rapidly. God that went quickly! I hear it daily. I’ve even said it myself. But sometimes time does not go quickly. Neither does it drag. It just progresses as normally and as evenly paced as it has always done; we simply project our levels of consciousness on to it.
Some of the reluctance to admit “The time went neither quickly nor slowly, it merely went at the exact identical same pace it always does” perhaps comes from that other cliche, how much it flies when you’re having fun. But living every second of time is the perfect riposte – you may not have always made the right choices, but that is living. The choice may’ve been mistaken; the choosing was not (to quote Sondheim.)
If there was one buzz phrase used frequently in the last decade I could get on board with, it is being present. It’s the polar opposite to asking WHATTG.
So as the embers settle on the log fires or barbecues, the smokey haze from the fireworks clears and we replace looking back quizzically at the last decade with looking forward optimistically to the next, I may even allow myself one extra moment of giddy, rose-tinted nostalgia. And an extra verb to convey it.
Where has the decade gone? WHATTG?
I lived and loved every second of it.
Then I’ll turn to the nearest available ear, sigh with a camp flourish, scratch my head and ask them: how is it February already?
Gary Nunn is a freelance journalist working in the UK and Australia
