I found a cool karaoke bar under a record shop, and somehow started talking to the bartender.

Aaron was a cosplayer. He made all of the props and costumes for his characters, the weapons, boots, armor and everything. For Aaron, his years and memories are split into the different characters he did, the props he made and the worlds they belong to. It was extremely obvious as he spoke, his cosplays, and the people he did them with. His time was recalled in parts divided so clearly by the Comic-Cons he attended cosplaying those characters he did.

Ever since, I couldn’t stop noticing the way people measured their time. You could tell almost immediately from the way they spoke, and how they measured their time always revealed so much about them.

In middle and high school, I probably measured time by the hangouts. Each hangout would mean new jokes to crack and new stories to tell. Those days were endlessly fun.

In the army, I measured time by the days. I drew out a calendar and marked each day that passed by coloring it in. I distinctly recall feeling like my life was in limbo, stuck in this strange place while everyone else moved forward. Counting down the days on a calendar marked out on my notebook was the only way of measuring time to be sure that it was still flowing.

In my first two years at university, I measured time by the chapters to study for each of my classes. For the harder math and physics classes, the syllabus covered 20, even 30 something chapters. This meant I needed to cover at least half before my midterms around Week 9, and the other half by Week 16. I was always studying, or thinking about and planning to study, because completing one chapter would mean I got one step closer to finishing the class, and the semester.

Away from school, I measured time by the trips I took and the memories I made with people. This is usually when I felt the most alive. Each memory, each destination, each person I met. I remember all of them.

There are many different ways to measure time. On a larger scale, I realized I have always measured time in songs, books, and movies. Each artist and their songs would become the soundtrack to that few weeks or months of my life. I played those songs or albums on repeat until I found another one. Each book would take a long night, a long flight to finish, or it would spread over a few weeks or a trip somewhere. And I would always spend the days after watching a movie I really liked re-living it again and again, all of the scenes and dialogue.

Somehow these songs and books and movies always mark the end of some era of my life, and the start of another.

Looking back, life felt fulfilling when I had some meaningfully productive way of measuring the passage of time, like when I completed a school term having learned the things I wanted to learn and achieved the result I hoped for. My lows always occurred when I had no clear, steady measurements of time, and the hours would helplessly blend into the days. Time goes by without leaving a trace, and I could not tell the difference between yesterday and the week before.

Another thing about all the good ways to measure time is that they all involve people, people you love and care about. Writing this made me remember how relationships are the foundation of the most fulfilling life, across all the books and people I have met, and should always be a top priority throughout life.