Changes

"For reasons not always at the time explicable, there are specific occasions when events begin suddenly to take on a significance previously unsuspected; so that before we really know where we are, life seems to have begun in earnest at last, and we ourselves, scarcely aware that any change has taken place, are careering uncontrollably down the slippery avenues of eternity." -- Anthony Powell.

How many times something crucial happened and we had to look back in time to recognize it did, when "events take on a significance previously unsuspected", "scarcely aware that any change has taken place", and yet...