Some relative window of time feels like the recent past, as opposed to a period before that which feels like the distant past. As of right now (November 2020), the recent past seems to go as far as fall 2017, or about three years ago. Some earlier parts of 2017 still feel recent, while others don't. Very little of 2016 still feels recent. All of 2019 feels recent.
Some factors might affect what feels like the recent past versus an undifferentiated distant past:
- Amount of geographic mobility — staying in one place makes time go faster while moving around a lot (as I did just about every year between 2010 and 2017) makes it go slower, or else sets up clear points of differentiation
- Emotional intensity — particularly volatile periods slow time down, while stable periods speed it up
- Impactful, external factors — i.e. a certain global pandemic, election of Donald Trump, etc... the start of the Covid-19 pandemic feels like a marker, while the subsequent months have changed the rate of time in ways I haven't quite been able to suss out yet
Looking back, a preceding period that 'moved slowly' would cause the recent past to stretch out longer, while a preceding period that 'moved quickly' makes it compress.
Ultimately a period that still belongs to the recent past is one where I can still feel the emotions and experiences of that period without much effort, as opposed to needing to consciously (effortfully) reconstruct the version of myself that existed circa 2015, 2012, 2008, etc. Generally the farther back it goes the more difficult it becomes to do. I can hardly relate to my high school self anymore (2002-06), and even my college-era self (2006-10) feels pretty distant.
Throughout the 2010s, I can remember a few times where I thought about the recent past, and it does seem to be about a 2-3 year window, although I also wonder if that length shifts with age — i.e. is it a certain percentage of one's life? (At 33, 3 years, at 44, will it be 4 years? How absolute or relative is the recent past and how subject to external factors?)