When It's Not 2016 Anymore
A slightly belated introspective new year's post
If you’ve been on Instagram in the last ten days, chances are you’ve seen the 2016 trend, which is…sharing photos from 2016. That’s it. That’s the whole trend.
A friend texted me earlier this week to ask what the trend was all about. “Is it some kind of ‘before Trump’ thing?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I think it’s simpler than that. It’s just looking back ten year ago.”
For the record, a large part of me fully and completely rejects that 2016 was a decade ago. I think of it in the same way I think of any years that happened after college: “a few years ago.” But then I think about being 28, being a newlywed, being impossibly naïve about my career, and being so obsessed with the idea of becoming a mother that I failed to enjoy my last few years as not one. That girl was young. That was a long time ago. Obama was president. The pandemic was still four years away. I didn’t yet live in the place I’ve now lived for seven years. My ten-year-old niece was a newborn. And judging by the carousels of photos I’ve seen over the last week or so, fashion was dramatically different…and I probably need to do a closet clean-out.
Of course, as nostalgia is the driving force in basically everything I write, I couldn’t miss out on this trend—though I admittedly didn’t have it in me to go down a full rabbit hole and post an entire year overview as others did. Instead, I shared this screenshot from my personal Instagram account in an effort to show that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same:
I remember taking this photo. I remember posting this photo. I remember that deeply frustrated feeling of being on the cusp of the life I wanted but not quite there yet. I’d just spent two weeks in residency at Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts, I’d finally finished tinkering with the novel I’d been working on since 2011 and was getting some positive query responses from agents, and I really believed it was all about to happen for me. It felt like a transition year, a year that was heading somewhere new. I was also freelancing for my full-time job, writing absurd numbers of blog posts and white papers and infographics, and whatever else anyone paid me to write each month. 2016 was a content-heavy year. I kept busy.
And yet, I also look at this picture and feel so annoyed with this version of myself. You don’t even know what it means to be busy! I want to tell her. All of your time is still your own! Stop building a secret baby registry for the child you won’t be pregnant with for another year and a half, and use that time to write more, dammit! Finish another book! Publish more short stories! And the books—do you have any idea how much you’re going to miss just getting to lie around on a Saturday and read books all day? Go, go do that!
Which got me thinking about 2026 Me. Today Me. Now Me. I’m in the final years of my thirties now instead of my twenties. (Okay, fine: final year, singular. 39 is practically knocking down my door.) I’m often deeply frustrated by feeling like I’m on the cusp of the life I’ve always wanted but still coming up short. My youngest son heads to kindergarten in the fall, and I’ll officially close the chapter on the baby years, the toddler years, the preschool years. In many ways, 2026 feels like a transition year, a year that’s heading somewhere new.
Which begs the question: in another ten years’ time, what will 2036 Me say about this year and how I spent my time? It’ll be the year my oldest son graduates high school. The final year of my forties. A transition year. A year that’s heading somewhere new.
On one hand, in a year that is off to such a catastrophically apocalyptic start, thinking ten years into the future feels actually ridiculous. Yet, I don’t hate the idea of letting 2036 Me guide how I spend my time this year. (For instance, I imagine 2036 Me will be really pissed if I don’t spend more time calling my representatives and lending my voice and support to the organizations that need it. 2036 You probably will too.) Isn’t that what it’s all for, anyway—living a life that you look back on and are proud of how you lived it?
Look, I don’t have any big conclusion to this or any lofty promises about what I’m going to do more or less of in 2026. The start of a new year always get me in my feels, so I’ve been spending some time thinking about the things that matter and the things that don’t. In 2016, there were two things I wanted more than anything in the world: to be a mom and to write books. What a gift that the two things I want most for myself have held true, even after all this time.