PAW MarchIssue - Flipbook - Page 95
version of myself that I wanted to
forget. The teenage me was desperately self-loathing, and I had worked
hard to build my self-confidence, and
to carve out my new identity. Yet
when I saw Bill, all my feelings of
inadequacy came flooding back. My
instinct was to flee—it was the only
way that I knew to protect myself
from revisiting that part of me that I
had so desperately wanted to purge.
I’ve since come to understand
that Bill is an unwitting example of a
negative emotional trigger, jarring me
back to memories associated with my
painful adolescence. The sensory input made my brain interpret normal
social interaction as dangerous. The
rational part of my brain became impaired, thus eliciting my profound
imprinted stress response of pretending to be someone else.
Sometimes, coming face to face
with people from our past—whether,
in the words of Taylor Swift, “you
painted all my nights a color that I’ve
searched for since,” or whether you
were a great guy to have fun with—
keeping our distance and being ashamed isn’t always the answer. In
fact, I’ve experienced the opposite of
the Bill experience, and I understand
why.
I’m able to have lunch with my
law school boyfriends because I liked
myself better then. I wasn’t perfect,
but these moments of nostalgia elicit
positive feelings, where I don’t feel
the need to pretend to be someone
else, or to run away. It doesn’t matter
that I choose to remember an idealized version of law school, because
my nostalgia associated with that
time in my life makes me feel better
today. In fact, research shows that
retrieving these positive memories
from time to time can increase our
self-esteem, remind us that people
care about us, and that our lives have
positive meaning.
I saw Bill again last week, and
although I tried to avoid him, he
came right up to me and said “Hi,
Nicole, how are you doing?” This
time, I smiled brightly, and said,
“Great, thanks,” before dashing away. When I told my husband, he
laughed. “You’re afraid of that accountant? He doesn’t want to actually talk to you—all you have to do
is say ‘hi’ back.” (Sage advice.)
Hopefully, my pro-age wisdom
will remind me that I’ve come a long
way since the trauma of my teenage
years, thus helping to improve my
future responses to reminders of a
time I’d rather forget. Eventually, I’ll
evolve to a point where I no longer
have to say, “It’s not you—it’s me.”
*All names have been changed, which
doesn’t matter anyway, because I’ve blocked
Bill from all my social media platforms—a
classic Millennial snowflake move—which
goes to show you that the intergenerational
flex works both ways.
TA P TO C O N N E C T
March Issue THE PRO-AGE WOMAN 95
