Sunday, February 19, 2012

Thank Goodness for Rosy Retrospection

The ability to look back on something and laugh probably provided an evolutionary advantage for humans back in the day, because without it all those bad memories we experience would do nothing but drag us down. For those who don't know the psychological term, rosy retrospection "refers to the finding that subjects later rate past events more positively than they had actually rated them when the event occurred.". What was this:
Later becomes an event to remember, with smiles and laughter, between family members far removed from the insanity and thoughts of "Is Yellowstone really worth this?". I can hear the glacé nostalgia from a 1950's mother, slightly sighing and giggling as she says to her young son "Remember when that bear chewed through our cooler of ice cream at Shenandoah? Oh, the look on your father's face! And the way you ran with the bear trotted towards you!"
Every year our family would take trips to Door County WI, a six hour car ride that lasted ages when I was 9. Throughout the years my sister's major meltdown about the dog near our cabin, our last-minute motel room turned cottage with no refrigerator for a week, and my mother insessently berating my father for missing the trolley on Washington Island (and thus, of course, "ruining her day AND the rest of the vacation") would all become little blips on my childhood radar, nothing more than a bump in the road or expression of how far we've come as a family since. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I suppose.

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