Life in Countdown, Turned Upside Down

Sio
Dec 14
2 min read

In my 20s, I left a good life in UK to chase creativity back home. Time felt endless, missing out never mattered.

In my 30s, I left comfort again, wandering the world. Time felt short, yet I believed I could catch up.

In my 40s, I came to Japan with no plan, only to see half my life was gone. Recent years raced like 16x fast-forward, a year feels like a month, a month like a week. Days busy yet hollow, too fast to even dream what’s left.

3 pandemic years vanished in a blink. The world felt turned upside down, life no longer moved forward but counted down.

This acceleration frightens me. Sometimes it feels the world could end tomorrow. Yet I’ve done so little, far from the life my younger self imagined. Did I waste my 20s and 30s? Is life really just like this?

My heart keeps asking, while the clock keeps ticking.

Why am I scared? Of aging, dying, or being too late? I realized my fear wasn’t death, but emptiness.

Most of my fear came from those pandemic years of nothing — no creation, no progress, no dreams. When days had no weight, time devoured them.

I doubted I could write again, yet I opened a blank page and began, to fight emptiness and not let time slip away.

In my 20s I wasted, in my 30s I chased, in my 40s I can’t squander. Time is finite, life is counting down, days speeding up. Yet it makes me clear: no wrong people, no unwanted things - only what I love.

Only when time is lived fully will life not be empty. Even if it races like 16x fast-forward, at least I’ll never live in vain again.