Member-only story
LIFE LESSONS
The Snapshots We Carry
And how they affect us
There’s a photo of me in 5th-grade sporting braces and a perm reminiscent of a poodle fresh from a blow dry. It’s 1980-something, a time when bigger meant better and this included the Linda Richmond-esque bifocal glasses with gold-hued stickers of my initials in one of the lenses’ corners.
For decades, I hated that skinny girl at the start of puberty. The one who begged her mom for a training bra we both know wasn’t necessary.
Yet over time, I started to look back at that photo and saw a completely different image staring back at me.
Snapshots Can Change
Hindsight offers the ability to see through the past with a different lens.
Think of any experience in your life — good or bad or somewhere in between.
How we remember an experience affects our perception.
For years, I looked at the photos of me in 5th grade and saw a mess of big hair, huge glasses, and boobs that made an anthill look like Mount Everest.
Now, on the cusp of fifty, I am able to see the tween I was less myopically. I’m able to zoom the mental camera out to…