As a new year rolled into our lives on January 1st, 2026, I was feelin’ what a lot of other folks were saying: 

It’s impossible that 2006 was 20 years ago. 

Nopeity, nope, nope, nope.

This is not right. The math is not mathing.

This simply cannot be.

I sided with the jokes that we stopped counting time during the pandemic.

It’s a little true. Since 2020, time has felt like it has oddly stood still, and yet moved at the speed of light—simultaneously. It’s a magic trick of the universe, and my brain hasn’t caught up to which cup the ball is hiding in because they’re moving too fast. 

2006 was a year that introduced us to Twitter (yes, before the weirdness), and the Wii, and movies hitting the box office were new ideas, like “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Da Vinci Code.” Rascal Flatts was selling CDs like hotcakes, and you could not escape “High School Musical” if you tried. Honestly. I know because I tried. 

It was also a notable year for world conflict, with Saddam Hussein executed for crimes against humanity, we saw the founding of WikiLeaks by Julian Assange, and, according to Wikipedia, there were 32 conflicts worldwide in 2006 that resulted in at least 25 fatalities.

Not to mention that 2006 has been recorded as the fifth hottest year on record. 

Whew.

Yet, it’s somehow nostalgic when we look back on it today, 20 years later. It seems like the ground was more stable under our feet. But, in hindsight, perhaps it wasn’t and perhaps we were enjoying life with a pair of rose-colored glasses and a Wii controller in our hands. 

As I sipped my non-alcoholic wine on New Year’s Eve and did some introspection in the days that followed as I welcomed a new year, my reflections turned from the events I remembered in 2006 toward my own way of looking at the world, as a writer, from 2006 to 2026…

My writing from 20 years ago has mostly been lost (other than an odd journal here or there). It was at least three computers and several external drives ago, to be fair. So it might be sitting in a cloud somewhere for me to find one day. But as I pondered my memories of writing then and my realities of writing now, I realized one thing that made the ground under my feet feel a little more stable, a little more ever-present. 

I’m not writing about the same things but I am writing with the same voice. 

I have new things to say, new things to share, new perspectives and new life wisdom and experience that all find their way into my words now…but the voice? The voice is unrelentingly and unapologetically, mine. 

I’m 20 years older. The ways in which I write have changed but the fact that it is me writing and that my voice (even when it quivers and wavers) is mine and mine alone? That’s a beautifully grounding thing. 

When I look back on my older writing, I can see the thread of my voice woven in. It is, perhaps, a little matured now. But it is the same thread creating a tapestry of words that I’ve left on this earth.

These days I still grab a cup of tea before I sit down at the keyboard and I still have scraps of paper all over my desk with ideas and half-written recipes. That hasn’t changed in 20 years. But I don’t feel the words being dragged out of me like a new writer, discovering the craft for the first time. I feel a quiet comfort in knowing the words are there and that they are mine to use.

They will come. 

I don’t get upset if a “perfect” idea for an article slips my memory because I know another will come visit me when I’m ready. 

I don’t force myself to write late into the night to finish “just one more thought.” I’ve learned to work with my body and writer’s brain to meet them at a happy medium, where sleep is still a valuable currency and where the ideas are still heard and recognized. 

20 years later and I’m still impressed at the power of words on a blank page. I still get excited to write and to play with letters, turning them into words, and sentences, and full-on essays, sharing my innermost thoughts. And I’m still in awe that there are people who read those thoughts and care what I say and stop their scrolling to leave a comment, either in agreement or disagreement. 

I have fundamentally changed as a person in 20 years…but I also have not.

I’ve not lost the inner voice inside me that helped me become a writer in the first place—the thing that makes me feel most myself, both on the page, and off. 

As writers, we’re naturally reflective. We think. We consider. We reflect on our lives, and what’s going on around us. We write from our own lived-experiences. 20 years can change our lived experiences, but it cannot change the light inside each and every one of us. Our own way of expressing ourselves. 

Here’s to another year of writing, and another year of honoring our inner voice. I honestly believe 2026 will be a year that requires us to dig deep for the courage to share our voices not when they matter, but to share our voices because they matter. 

Cheerful New Year, friends. May we rise to it with our words, our voices, and our actions.

~

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” ~ (maybe) Albert Einstein