For me, time is elastic. The past and future are, in some ways, concepts of the present. I mean the present is where we are right now, right? I mean I can see it, but the past and future, they could be heaven, or hell or a dream or a day dream. We say we were there or are going there, but we KNOW we are here. 

So, to me, I use them as tools. The past has good and bad in it and if we can remove the emotional repsonse to those then they become tools. And as the future is not writ (though in some ways I feel the past is actually not writ either , but I digress) we can use these tools to formulate that supposed time frame out of the remembered time frame from the cockpit of right Now. Well, at least that is what I tell myself ;)