The kitchen clock your family ignored for twenty years was counting every meal you shared under it.

Time passes unnoticed in exactly the places where the most is happening. Nobody checks the clock during a normal dinner, and those dinners are the bulk of a childhood, counted off quietly whether anybody was keeping track or not. The unremarkable total is the real one.

At the next meal with your family, register that it is one of a finite number. Then put your phone face down and let the conversation go wherever it wants.