My annual rut has arrived.

I usually stumble into one at some point during the year, but “stumbling” seems to imply that there’s a sort of uneven ground that your feet happen upon, followed by some more shuffling as the soil gives way to rockiness, which gives way to a gully.

This year’s rut feels like I stubbed my toe on a concrete parking bumper, then fell face-first into the Grand Canyon. No warning, no gravel shifting underneath — nothing. Just the impact, then the fall.

Ah, ruts. If I’ve mentioned one in the last 11 months, please scratch it from the record. It was merely a blip, with nothing rutty about it.

One of the [many] things that’s fueling this particular rut is the realization that time passes too quickly. Earth-shattering, right?

This morning I was washing a few dishes and wondering if there’s a way to make time slow down. Not literally, because that’s too much science for me (not to mention impossible). I’ve always wondered whether making a point of writing specific things down in a daily journal would help.

Being the bright bulb that I am, I then realized I could simply reflect back on the last two-ish years of daily writings to see if this proved to be true. I did a bit of rewind magic and, interestingly, wondered if I’d been high/drunk/coherent/awake/alive when I wrote most of them — because I hardly remember penning the majority, with the exception of a few of my favorites, and a few of the more recent ones. So no…it doesn’t help. Not for me, anyway.

Oh, ruts. Is there no way around you? Must I traverse through your length-to-be-determined ditch the way one rides out a storm?

Apparently. But when it comes to ruts, they’re everywhere — we just happen to fall into the ones we’re most vulnerable to. What constitutes a rut for us may not constitute a rut for someone else. The landscape is one, massive, pockmarked minefield rife with every item on our list of things that bring us down.

Here a rut, there a rut, everywhere a rut-rut. The good thing about them is that they do, in fact, end. By virtue of having fallen into one, there will inevitably be a light at the end of the tunnel…an increase in elevation that brings you back up to level ground. For every low, there is a high. For every evening, there is dawn. Every season has an end, and every wound is sure to mend.

Tonight, despite the sudden onset of my rut, I am thankful for realizing that the passage of time is something that cannot be slowed. Even if it results in remembering just once to pause and take in every ounce of a moment, a silver lining is found. Regardless of our ruts — their duration, intensity and timing — here’s to remembering that this too shall pass.