Yeah, the "repetition is what makes time go faster" thing never made much sense to me. Few parts of my life have involved more day-to-day sameness and as rigid a schedule as high school. Should have felt fast, right? Nope, felt slow as hell. The less-repetitive summers? Felt about the same speed (so, seemed nice and long—now I blink and it's like "oh shit, the leaves are falling? I meant to plant some tomatoes...").

Meanwhile, the very-novel first few years with kids seemed to go by in a flash. A month feels about a week long to me, now, and has for years.

For me the effect seems disconnected from circumstances, but connected to age—years had been feeling subjectively shorter for quite a while before I had kids, even, and they seemed to just be "getting shorter" as I got older, period, no relation to what's going on.