Auntie in 2016, now with a full list of what Auntie was really up to.

The push is on to make 2026 the new 2016.

Just in case you were wondering what yr Auntie over here was doing in 2016, I was working a “cool media job” in a midsized Midwestern US city known both for for its microbrewery, and arts culture. After work was small venue concerts, and art museum exhibition openings, and penthouse keggers with the city’s intelligentsia. I was the Queen of the Hipsters, you guys. I lived the whole scene life.

2016 was also the year I was formally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Fifteen years after my first flare, but that’s a pretty standard wait for diagnosis, especially since I was pre-ACA and went six years between aging off my dad’s insurance, and getting my own. Like I said, I have been uninsured before, I know what to expect coming up.

As for what I looked Iike? This is the actual professional headshot I used at the time, for my “cool media job.”

Photo by Johnny Quirin, who had to stop laughing at the sweater long enough to take the picture.

I do still have the sweater. And the pearls, for that matter.

I believe 2016 is also the year I started thrifting and swapping in earnest. That’s about the time my friend Mindi brought her plus-sized, new pallet purchase & thrift mix shop to my area, and we girls got CUTE on City Chic brand dresses. Plus, the natural hair movement was in its infancy still, but I had enough luck with the LCO method that for the first time in my life, I had hair.

Apparently, I also have the pulse on the cultural shifts, because while I don’t have that “cool media job” anymore, “recipe & lifestyle blogger” is so 2016 coded it hurts 😅😅

Also, I seem to remember competition for the Halloween Costume of 2016: Kristen Wiig as Maddie Ziegler in Sia’s Chandelier video, and David S. Pumpkins. Yes, both Saturday Night Live sketches. I may be off by a year either way. Regardless, I expect the same energy for Halloween 2026.

Update, 5/20/2026: The more I get into the year, and start asking "when was that?" the more I realize it was 2016...

• That Fibro diagnosis was in March 2016... and the prior authorization for my Cymbalta was approved the week after my first trip to New Orleans, Louisiana in mid-June. I spasmed the night before the trip, but was able to manage it with the meds I had been cleared for and didn't miss anything we had planned to do on the trip.

  • 2016 was also the year of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, and I was in New Orleans for Pride Week, so that was a lot of "being brave is being scared and doing it anyway," but that's the queer experience for you.

  • And speaking of Cymbalta, it's been 10 years now that my anxiety and panic disorder has been controlled, hallelujah!!

• 2016 was an Election Year, Trump vs. Ms. Rodham-Clinton. Which means that 2016 was the year I dusted off my crochet skills and made a "pussy hat" to wear while leading chants at my city's Women's March. I was also at the "Not My President" rally the night after the election results were announced.

• 2016 was the year of the Standing Rock resistance camp. I really started showing up at my local satellite protests in late summer 2016, and that started my career as a community organizer in my city. Hence, knowing how to lead chants at a march by November.

• 2016 was also my first weekend music festival! Ironically, I just found the souvenir t-shirt, and the date on it left me pretty gobsmacked. As for it being my first, it was my first weekend festival, I spent my teens and 20's going to day festivals like Ozzfest (speaking of, I last did that one in 2006), and Warped Tour.

  • 2016 is then also the year I really discovered tent camping.

• 2016 is when I qualified for my first Medical Marijuana card. Like Water Protecting, it's something I associate more with 2017, but I believe I did start making those long-haul dispensary runs in autumn 2016. Which means I'm nearing a whole decade of almost daily cannabis use. Oh, and my experience has been absolutely positive, ask me about it sometime.

Damn. I didn't realize that year was so personally significant until I look back now in retrospect. Turns out, so was 2006 (believe it or not, that year I became a Reiki Master and attended Ozzfest. That year was my first anime convention, too. And it was definitely the year I chose my college majors...). 2026 seems to be shaping up to be just as eventful. It's those years that end in six, man...