HOW LONG IS A PIECE OF LIFE...?

If we were to equate our lives to movies, when reviewing them in retrospect many years later, it would probably seem to us that there were quite a goodly number of 'jump-cuts' scattered throughout.  That's because (as I've said elsewhere before), we tend to compartmentalize events in our lives into separate segments long after the fact, rather than view them all as the one unravelling ball of string that they appeared to be at the time.

In fact, as they're happening, different periods in our lives tend to 'dissolve' into one another (segue) in a seamless fashion, without us really being aware that we're transitioning from one 'era' into the next.  As a daft example, I was living in one house when the first 42 or 43 issues of TV CENTURY 21 were published, and because the comic made a huge impression on me, I tend to associate it mainly with that house.

However, there were another 199 or 200 issues that came out while I was living in the next house, but I tend to associate that domicile more with periodicals like WHAM!, SMASH!, POW!, FANTASTIC, TERRIFIC, LION, TIGER, BUSTER, VALIANT, WHIZZER & CHIPS, COR!!, SUPER DC, THUNDER, JET, KNOCKOUT, COUNTDOWN/TV ACTION, etc., than I do with TV21.  Which is odd when you think about it, because TV21 ran for another four years (and that's not counting the relaunched, non-GERRY ANDERSON issues) during my time in that new house, and was predominant in the first several months of my time there.  

We do the same with our schooldays, separating our primary and secondary schooldays with what seems like a sharp line, whereas they're really less well-defined than that.  One day we're at primary school then we're into the summer holidays, then we're at secondary school, and it occurs seamlessly as it happens, but then feels partitioned by a huge gulf when we reminisce decades later.

I've always found that curious and I wonder why we (unwittingly) do it.  Is it just a trick of the mind or could there be a logical reason for it?  Thoughts or theories anyone?  (Assuming I've expressed myself coherently.)