I’ve written on here before about how it has surprised me how much I’ve been struggling after turning 40. Time passes by differently. I was working with some calendar imagery that I thought it might be helpful to write about.

I saw an image in my mind of the pages of a calendar in a row from left to right – January through December. It was like I would walk through the months of the year…and then when I would get to the end of December, I would circle around and start back at January again – like this:

Each year, it was like time went by faster and faster and you weren’t absorbing as much of your experiences. As you circled around and around again, it was similar to the feeling of circling a drain and just waiting to be sucked down into it. I asked Google AI to create an image of this and here is the image it made:

I thought it was really helpful. If you look closely, you can see the month names on the calendar pages. This captures the feeling you have after turning 40 that you are “out of time.”

But I know that that is just a feeling. So I had a breakthrough where I started being able to see a new January after December. After I walked through the months of the year, instead of circling around and repeating the year…I saw new months that I could walk into. I asked Google AI to make an image representing this concept…I thought it would be interesting to see a road made out of the pages of the calendar to symbolize how we are walking on a pathway to heaven, and each day is a new experience. This is what it made:

It really helped me be able to envision time going forward…and that each month is full of new experiences…nothing is repeated. Here are a few more AI images. Some of the month names are not in the right order, but it’s still helpful in seeing how there are still steps on the pathway.

So, again, some of the months weren’t in the right order…but the idea is to think of it as the road being made out of the pages of the calendar, and as you are going through life you enter into a new month – like this:

So, just think of that order of the months when you are looking at the images with the Calendar Road or when you are envisioning it in your mind. And then in the last Google AI image, instead of the road being made out of the pages of the calendar, the month names are on signs like mile-markers…or month markers. And as you are driving down the road of life, you start new months all along the way.

I hope you found these images helpful. I’ll stop here for today and write again sometime soon.