This time in 2016 I was laughing at this clown who was a joke candidate for president, saying it was hilarious that he was just being a master-level troll. Then he actually became president for some reason and it’s all been shit since.

I was apparently in Sweden in the mountains staying in a tent for a day with friends: https://flic.kr/s/aHskCqtemk

And today hm, I’m just 12 km from the North Korean border https://maps.app.goo.gl/qbLeNM3y5ruP3uGp9 at a very big children’s playground.

10 years ago, I was running a LOT. I ran a lot of half marathons that year, and was doing about 300km a month towards the end of the year (About 10km a day). I was also developing a stress fracture in my shin though I had no idea at the time.

I started as a run director at my local parkrun (though I had started running at parkrun the year before in 2015). I’m still running parkrun today and volunteering as well, with 303 runs and 210 volunteers.

In 2016 my kiddo turned 11. They turn 21 in a couple of months!

I was dating someone new for the first time since getting divorced, though it didn’t last very long.

I think that’s probably it?

Exactly 10 years ago I was coming out of a terrible relationship with someone who was a… sociopath? Psychopath? Doesn’t matter as they didn’t believe that mental health issues were real anyway. Fortunately they were only checks notes a doctor .

But I was about to meet someone who I’d have a fling with. A 10 year-2 kid-2 house-1 dog deep fling so far.

I was very lonely, a drug addict in complete denial.

Now Im engaged in narcotics anonymous, recently clean for the first time in 20 years.

I have a great partner, I’m step-dad (now just dad actually) to three little nightmares who I love very, very much. Getting them diagnosed (autistic and ADHD) was hell and I’m a lot greyer now that I was at 27.

Still lots of problems but that’s life, it’s one step at a time.

In 2016 I lived in Montenegro almost the whole year, worked in a small American company as the only back-end developer, and traveled to Shanghai for a month to study Chinese. And I had a girlfriend that lived in another country in my home in my stead.

Now I practically forgot the Chinese language and live in Valencia and work for another American company much bigger, but don’t travel that much. And I am married now on that same girl, so not much had changed in a way, it’s a bit rough now but I hope I’ll adapt with time

2016 at this time of night? Probably typing on a computer.

Now? Typing on a computer.

Married 5 years vs. 15 years now.

Working the same job, though it looks like cheap labor in India + AI is going to end that this year. Eh, I’ll find a new gig.

Went from renting an apartment to buying a house.

Well it looks like we were at the beach with our first kid

Today there are two of them and their friends are about to come over

Drinking, A lot. Woke up on a park bench in the middle of winter with no jacket on. I could have died.

10 years sober today.

I was starting the same job I still have. I could have made a lot more money by jumping jobs as is common in my industry. But now I have six weeks vacation. Which, for the USA, is a lot.

I was married in 2016, sliding into the greatest depression of my life due to her abusing me daily for the next 6 years.

2016 was a weird year for me. I had a strong fling that ended abruptly, and I was heartbroken for a while. It was an alright year, I was working in a steady tech job and living in a share house.

2026 I’m living in my own house with 2 cats, my partner of 7 years just broke it off with me for reasons I had very little control over. I’m utterly heartbroken and going through a similar issues I did back in 2016, though more justified. I might recover soon but it’s been a really bad few years, and I’ve not been able to make much of myself lately.

Man, I’ve really got to watch out for 2036, it might be a doozy.

In 2016 I was a nervous wreck working a minimum wage job at a grocery store living with my parents.

In 2026 I’m now a nervous wreck in therapy working a $24/hr job at a slaughterhouse living with my dad (Mom passed away in January).

2016 was an interesting year for me. I had an odd week of coincidences that appeared like a hypomanic episode that never happened before and never repeated again. The biggest one being that I was dating a guy who had just told me that his lifelong dream was to meet his favorite band. That week, I won a radio contest that got us tickets to a concert with a meet-and-greet at a tiny venue with that same band.

The episode prompted me to finally see a psych for the depression I’d been dealing with for most of my life. It started me on anti-depressants, which have massively improved my quality of life.

But the biggest thing was that the episode included a day of absolute clarity. I was driving and thinking, as I’m prone to do, when out of the blue everything just made sense. I could see in my head how everything was connected to everything else, and it was intense. But I’m a skeptic, and I needed to know that I was still grounded in reality, so I pulled over into a parking lot and called a friend. I asked him to help me make sure I was still making sense and I wasn’t going off the deep end. He’s a deeply rational guy, known to recognize bullshit, and yet as I talked on and on about the many puzzle pieces that now seemed to fit together, he remarked that yes, I was still making sense.

Key to it was the feeling that it was a sort of enlightenment, the same kind that religious folks might feel after years of meditation, or that some people experience through psychedelic drugs. There was a strong sense that I was not alone in that sensation, that many others had felt it before and that when they did, they had the same epiphany that we were connected directly. The sense of peace was incredible. I don’t believe in a god and that moment did not change that, but I did come away with a new respect for those who take their faith seriously and sincerely (that is, not like the christians in the US that use it to spread hate, but rather like the monks who give up everything to pursue their spiritual journeys.) I could feel the immensity of the universe, and see in my mind’s eye an infinite web that brought everything together. I could mentally travel that web from point to point, seeing all different perspectives at the same time. It was wild, and hasn’t happened again since.

Despite it being so brief, the few hours I spent in that state have impacted me to this day. Some things that used to bother me didn’t annoy me anymore. Finding patience became much easier. It also became easier to understand and connect to people.

One more weird thing that started that week and never stopped - I developed the uncanny ability to spot four-leaf clovers. I can’t count how many I’ve discovered in the ten years since, but if there’s a four-leafer in a patch that I walk by and all I do is scan it in my periphery, I will stop, reach down, and either point it out or pluck it to give to whoever I’m with. It’s like they jump out to me. It’s fun having a strange talent that makes people happy.