A lot of people associate the word "triggered" with experiencing a strong emotional reaction of fear, shock, anger, or worry, especially if they are made to remember something bad that has happened in the past, myself included. The trigger that is about to unfold here is not bad, emotional perhaps, and is best described by another definition of triggered which is a particular action, process, or situation. In my case is was a particular action that triggered me.
I was going through old photographs and ran across one that was taken back in the early 90's. I had completely forgotten about this photo but man, did it ever bring back a flood of memories. To almost anyone else it is just an old, grainy photo. But to me it speaks volumes, as it includes my first house, my first real garage (pre Amberlight), my daily driver '69 Chevelle Malibu, my project car - a 1966 Chevy Impala SS convertible big block car, our '85 Honda Accord family car, and barely visible - another '66 Impala, this one was a hardtop ex-street racer aptly named "The White Whale". I can even see my Craftsman air compressor, still in it's packing crate, that I had purchased at Sears. Who would of thought one photograph could trigger so many memories?
I think photos are one of the more powerful triggers out there, both good and bad. I sympathize with those that see the bad ones. I am sure that old pictures of the Twin Towers in New York bother a lot of folks, especially if they lost a loved one there. For myself, I do not like seeing photos of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. My son was at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in 2017 and almost lost his life in the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. To help deal with the stress I literally wrote about it the next day. Sometimes words have a healing effect, at least for me.
The reason I was going through my old photos was to organize them and put them into photo albums. Remember those? I think it's so much better to be able to access your photos in an album then to keep them filed away in a box. I consider myself lucky that the vast majority of my photos are physical photographs, not JPEG files. Remember that the next time you are searching for a pic on your phone or PC. Digital does come in handy but I think there can be a balance between the two. So if you have some old photos tucked away, go dig them out and trigger yourself, in a good way.
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| L to R - 69 Malibu, 66 Impala SS, 85 Accord, 66 Impala Hardtop |
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