On this straight, arrow-shaped line that is life, any invitation to stop and look back becomes a disturbing experience. We rush so fast toward the future that we forget it's with that same speed that we move away from the present and leave the past behind. And I no longer know if it's deliberate: to avoid having time to consider whether we've made a mistake, because we don't know exactly who we are or what we want, for fear of having taken the wrong shortcut at some point and not knowing how to retrace our steps. Or perhaps this is the only pace to get there. The fact is, at least for me, my relationship with time is becoming increasingly dysfunctional.

In an hour, I'll yearn for this moment. It happens to me all the time; it's like receiving nostalgia in advance. Only when it happens—and that makes it unattainable, nonreturnable—will I value this present I find myself in now. I'll think with melancholy, I'll romanticize it, even though I'm in a hurry now and it seems dull. I'll tell myself that I didn't savor it, that I should have enjoyed it more, and that I wasn't aware of it when I still had time. And then it will all be memory and regret. A heavy burden that makes you fear that, in the end, the balance of it all will be that I didn't live long enough.