As April vacation comes around, I think about when I was a kid, champing at the bit to get out of school.

I liked school most of the time, but when the sun shone longer in the day and the crocuses started sprouting, I wanted out.

Didn’t those days right before vacation seem endless? We couldn’t wait to bust through the school doors, pile onto the bus and screech and holler until we got dropped off at our driveways.

The week stretched long before us. I don’t remember planning much. In those days we didn’t take off in the family station wagon and go somewhere.

Our parents worked, so we made our own fun, every day.

We sprung out of bed and went wherever the day took us. If somebody had an idea and it sounded compelling, we plunged in.

We never knew what were going to be doing until we got up in the morning and put our heads together.

Sometimes we escaped to the woods to see what the winter had done to our summer playground. The sweet, damp smell of the forest was a welcome treat after having been away so long.

Sometimes we’d swing birch trees, like the boy in Robert Frost’s poem “Birches.”

We had some nice birches at the edge of our woods and, being small, we were able to crawl up their narrow trunks, careful not to break the branches, and inch ourselves out to the end until they’d bend down and drop us on the ground.

We just had to be mindful of not letting the tree snap back too quickly or we’d get slapped and stung by the swish of branches.

In spring, everything was new, and it seemed ages since we’d trudged through the soft moss that covered the woods floor, although it actually had been only a few months.

Time is so different when you’re a child. A winter is an eternity; a year, like a lifetime.

Now, a year passes with a wink of an eye; those of us in our 50s are incredulous that our lives are two-thirds over.

Where did the time go?

I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the clearer the memories are of childhood and the dimmer those from between youth and old age.

Before my father and father-in-law died, when they were in their 90s, they told stories of childhood adventures with such detail, it was as if they had experienced them yesterday.

Why is it that, as we age, we tend to wend our way back, like a movie in reverse, to where we began?

When we were young, we played each day by ear, much like retired people do.

I used to dread the idea of retirement because I like working so much. I found it comforting to know a lot of journalists work right into their 80s. Why would I ever want to retire? I’d tell people. My job is too much fun. I suspect CBS’ Mike Wallace, who died April 7 at 93, would have agreed.

As time marches on, the less afraid I am to relinquish the structure of work and all the perks that come with it.

I’m beginning to look at retirement as a sort of extended school vacation that never ends, one that promises spontaneity, adventure and time for reflection.

Getting off the bus and heading into April vacation all those years ago, I never imagined how differently I would experience the passing of time as an adult.

Each year goes by faster than the last, as they say. Seize the day. Revel in the freshness that is spring. The sun goes down so quickly.

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 24 years. Her column appears here Saturdays. She may be reached at [email protected]