"The older you are, the faster time goes by. You'll be 6 years old before you know it," my mother said, responding to my angst over why it took so long for my birthday to arrive. Decades later, these words ring true. Time does fly, and the older I get, the more this is a reality.

Soon the third anniversary of the devastating tsunami of March 11, 2011, will be upon us. Has it really been nearly three years?

For many in Rikuzentakata, a city in Iwate Prefecture largely destroyed on March 11, the past 2½ years seem to have flown by, while others say that time has all but stopped. For residents whose lives are anything but normal, seldom happy and far from simple, time — whether fast or slow — is an enemy. "We just want our lives back," I hear the locals say over and over. "We just want everything to be normal again."