I've also gone back to 2016: we had more collagen but half the grace

PalmOn this straight, arrow-shaped line that is life, any invitation to stop and look back becomes a disturbing experience. We rush so fast toward the future that we forget it's with that same speed that we move away from the present and leave the past behind. And I no longer know if it's deliberate: to avoid having time to consider whether we've made a mistake, because we don't know exactly who we are or what we want, for fear of having taken the wrong shortcut at some point and not knowing how to retrace our steps. Or perhaps this is the only pace to get there. The fact is, at least for me, my relationship with time is becoming increasingly dysfunctional.

I'm afraid of time.We are aware of that. And that's why I was glancing sideways at him. 2016 trendWith this trend, the internet is reminding us what the world, life, and we ourselves were like ten years ago. It feels like only yesterday that 2016 was upon us, and I wondered if I could truly feel nostalgia for such a recent past. Fed up with all these artificial and forced predictions that 2026 must be the new 2016, I've decided to give up. Who was I in 2016? I don't even know what I was doing then. Do you know? For a moment, I doubted whether I was in high school, university, or if I'd already finished my studies. How much time has passed since 2016?

If I already struggle to look at photos of what I did last week—things that, while we're still savoring them, are already over—I can't imagine how difficult it's going to be to do this. Even so, I open the camera app on my phone and start. scroll Ten years ago. In the time it takes to get my bearings in the gallery, I wonder if all my memories aren't a blur because I myself condemn them to be so, every time I resist sending a moment to the past, denying memory a place. But here we are: welcome to 2016, the year when—apparently—it was still fashionable to go to BCM on New Year's Eve. Yes, a long time ago, indeed. It was the year when we still paid a euro for sips of beer and 800 for four-bedroom apartments. It was the year of turning 21, of falling in love—even more—long-distance, of doing Erasmus, of taking all the selfies in the world because we knew we were young, ofoutfits Horrible, from the first feminist demonstration, from having many friends.

Although I am interested in taking this journey in 2016, it's not so much to see what was happening then, but to place it alongside 2026 and compare them: a part of me was already there, the same part that is still here now. And, in turn, another part has fled. I suppose I had to sacrifice it to be that other person we are now, the one who has grown in ten years. Who are you? Do we know each other? Why did you cast out my other version? Do you think you're better than her? We tend to think so: that if we move forward it's always to progress. But I'm trying to do this exercise from a patient, benevolent, and curious perspective. without the intention of measuring goalsWhat has become of who we were, what we had, our relationships, our thoughts from 2016?

The first photo I find from January is this one of me out partying with friends. And, among them, Jabi. It makes me laugh to think that just yesterday we were there again, partying together, after so long. I sent him the photo on a whim, he laughed – "What are these faces?" – and I think this whole day has already been worth it. trend from 2016. With him, I feel that these 10 years have served to separate us and bring us back together. As if our lives had been shaken and, now, through a process of sedimentation, everything had fallen back into place by its own weight. Apart from his, other faces catch my attention. They look at me, defiant, repeating themselves throughout my gallery, belittling the capacity that 10 years have to change and define us.

But the faces that have changed still hurt me more than the faces that are gone. I recognize my godfather in the last photo we have with all my cousins ​​and I can hardly look at him for more than three seconds. However, the image of my mother blowing out the 45 in my student apartment in Barcelona pierces me to the core. I see my father without gray hair and blame myself for not having a fresher memory of him like that, one that would have prepared me for that moment. "Pain points to what is important to us," says Marina Merino in the article '2016 and other dangers of nostalgia' to SubstratumAnd I like to think that pain has a purpose, that we can still know what should matter to us 10 years from now.

In 2016, we all had more collagen, more radiance in our faces, tighter skin, a spell cast over our eyes. Everything seemed easier. And, in reality, everything was about to get a little harder. We enjoyed ourselves without knowing it, taking ourselves for granted. We tasted worse, we made a little bit of cringeWe used to share everything. Now, in 2026, we like him better. In exchange for hope and innocence, we have wit, charm, sound judgment, and a sense of urgency. We're more astute, we're more discreet, and we know how to choose. We're so lucky that 2026 is definitely not the new 2016.