There are lots of different ways to measure a year's time. A year is 365 days; it's also 12 months, 52 weeks, 8,760 hours, and 525,600 minutes. All of these measurements come together to describe the same amount of time passing.
What all of these numbers don't communicate is the emotional experience of living another year of life. It can't measure the moments of laughter, or the moments of stress. It can't measure the amount of tears cried into both buckets of joy and buckets of pain. It can't measure how we grow both physically and emotionally, and it couldn't measure how much can change in that time period.
This could not be any truer than it was for the Pines family between the last day of summer in 2013 and the last day of summer in 2014. In that year alone Dipper and Mabel Pines turned thirteen years old, learned that their parents had been killed in a car accident that very day, been accepted by Stan and Ford as their guardians, dealt with the trauma of sexual assault and lost innocence, experienced a major court trial, found adoptive fathers in Stan and Ford, and adjusted their whole lives around the mysterious town that was now their home.
The family experienced hardships deeper than most could imagine, but on the flip side they had also experience indescribable joy. It was no secret that Stan Pines was not exactly the world's greatest role model, and Ford was so reclusive that no one ever knew what to make of him. Somehow though, as if by magic, when Dipper and Mabel needed them most that human instinct to care for and protect kicked into overdrive for both old men. Fatherhood wasn't something that was on either man's life agenda, but those extra tight hugs, sweet smiles, and understanding of how desperately they were needed made the whole thing more than worthwhile.
Stan had actually shown his protective side to the young twins and his twin brother before that phone call changed everything. All during that magical summer gruff as he was Stan Pines never backed down from a challenge to protect what he held dearer than all the riches in the world…. his family. Whether he was punching a pterodactyl in the face to rescue his niece's beloved pet pig, tackling zombies with his bare hands, scaling a literal mountain to prove he could be a hero, and finally sacrificing himself to save a town and brother that never gave him the credit he was due.
He was ultimately saved from the most unlikely source, a colorful scrapbook their sweet and thoughtful niece had slaved over the entire summer. In her ability to see the very best in everyone she had documented everything needed to piece Stan's broken mind together and allow everyone to see the hero that she always knew was inside of him.
In doing so she had unknowingly opened Ford's eyes to how blind he had been about the blessing that he had in his twin brother. It convinced him to take a step he had wanted to take for more than half his life and invite his brother to sail the world with him. Go on the adventure they spent so many boyhood nights dreaming about.
Of course life had other plans and adventures for the two old men, but looking back on the past 525,600 minutes both of them knew they wouldn't trade this adventure for all the riches of the seven seas.
525,600 minutes is still a long enough time for wounds to form and wounds to heal, and short enough a time for those wounds to still ache when reminded.
