At two in the morning on New Year’s Day, after the champagne glasses have been cleared away, the guests have departed, and I pass into the quiet solitude of my darkened bedroom, I engage in Recalibration.

The year is 2026, I think to myself. 2026 is this year, I repeat, mantra-like, until it sinks in as truth (or I give up).

2025 is now last year. 2024 is now two years ago. And so forth. It’s the simplest of math, not even addition or subtraction, merely counting, but it sometimes surprises me. It feels impossible that 2019 should be seven years ago.

I like that feeling of numerical surprise. But it lessens as you go further in the past. ”1926 was a hundred years ago” produces no emotional reaction in me.

That’s okay. I have other tricks up my sleeve. I try with pop culture landmarks.

KPop Demon Hunters was last year. Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” was two years ago. Barbenheimer was three years ago. And so forth. Pokémon GO turns 10 this year; Hannah Montana turns 20.

Historical events, too. Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago. That war has been going on for four years. Eugh. The traumatic 2016 US election was one full decade ago, and this year we’ll be observing the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

But I think what surprises me the most from this section is that the COVID-19 pandemic was six years ago. Ancient history.

How about life development landmarks?

People born in 2025 are now crawling and babbling. 2024-borns are now walking and tripping and speaking in sentences with multiple words in them. 2023-borns are dressing themselves and also throwing temper tantrums.

Typical pre-schoolers these days were born in 2022. Kindergarteners were born in 2020. And at least in the US education system, elementary schoolers were born in 2015–2019, middle schoolers were born in 2012–2014, and high schoolers were born in 2008–2011.

There are people born in 2013 who are old enough to use social media, born in 2010 who are old enough to drive, born in 2008 who are old enough to vote in the US, born in 2005 who are old enough to drink.

All eyebrow-raising milestones on their own, but if you put them in series like that it kind of dulls the impact. Ah well. How about this?

The typical first-time mother is 27.5 years old (as of 2023 data), which would put her year of birth around 1998. I am older than that. Now that is depressing.

It’s time to sleep. It’s 2026, and I still can’t shake the feeling that the ‘90s were just, like, 10 years ago.