September 1st is a very special date - it might make you feel very old

If you thought September was simply the month that marked the sudden end of summer, the commencement of the 'back to school' season, and the initial defrosting of Mariah Carey ahead of Christmas, think again.

Because this year, 01/09/2026 (or 09/01/2026, if you're reading from the United States) has brought some seriously uncomfortable news with it.

You might want to sit down for this one.

Because, as it turns out, this year's September 1st marks the mathematical beginning of the late 2020s. Yep, you read that right. The late 2020s.

According to the maths doing the rounds online, if you split the 2020s into three roughly equal sections, September 1, 2026 marks the point where we enter the final third of the decade.

Which means 2027, 2028, and 2029 are officially on the horizon.

We're officially in the late 2020s... yep. (Getty Stock Images)

And suddenly, 2030 feels less like some distant sci-fi future and more like something we should probably start mentally preparing for.

The revelation was enough to send people on X into a full-blown existential crisis - myself included - with one person admitting: "This decade has been flying by; I cannot lie. Covid permanently f****d my time perception."

And, honestly, that might explain why this particular piece of maths feels so nauseating.

Because 2020 wasn't exactly a normal year. In March, life as we knew it effectively stopped.

Schools closed, non-essential shops shut, and people were told to stay at home. Pubs, restaurants, cinemas, gyms and countless other places closed their doors, while birthdays, weddings, holidays, festivals and other milestones were cancelled or postponed.

Then it happened again.

The pandemic was a staggering SIX years ago (Martin Pope/Getty Images)

Another lockdown arrived in November 2020, followed by a third in January 2021, with restrictions continuing well into that year.

For millions of people, huge chunks of their lives became one long stretch of days spent at home, with very few of the usual markers that make one week, month or year feel different from the next.

And that's probably why so many of us still feel like we're somehow living in 2020.

"I needed an extreme content warning on this tweet," another social media user wrote.

"But i'm still processing 2020," a third responded.

“Please stop," a fourth begged. "I do not like that."

Someone else added: "I was having a challenging day, idk what I feel now."

The realisation has freaked out a number of social media users (Getty Stock Images)

Then came the brutally relatable: "I think my beard just turned grey reading this." Same, sis.

And perhaps the most devastating response of all: "I've been living the early 2020s for 6 years?"

That's certainly how it feels.

Because the pandemic didn't just steal holidays and nights out. It disrupted the normal rhythm of life, leaving many people with the feeling that whole years had somehow disappeared - while 2020 itself remains nostalgically close, making today's date feel particularly brutal.

Because if you're still mentally somewhere around the first lockdown - like me - you might wanna work on processing the fact that we're officially getting on.