"Spin"

Spin is defined as "a distinctive point of view, emphasis, or interpretation."

The word has acquired a negative connotation recently, as we compare the same news stories as heard on FOX, or NPR. Sometimes you'd never know you were hearing the same story.

But the above definition has no negative connotation, and we all do it, all the time. It has to do with mood. The first time you tell an anecdote, does it sound the same as the 10th time? If you were frightened by the incident, your telling of it is coloured by that. If, later, you're tired and the fear has worn off, doesn't the story come out different? Five years later, does the tale still have an edge, or has it become funny? Do you think you might make light of it when you tell your friends, so that they don't worry?

Something truly awful happened to me in 1968. It was so horrible that I had nightmares about it, and my patterns of life changed because of it. I told a few people about it over the years, receiving a lot of sympathy, but the nightmares continued. One day, about 20 years after it happened, I was telling a friend, and in the telling, I started to see humour in it. By the time I was finished, my friend and I were both rolling on the floor, laughing!

The bonus was that the nightmares stopped, and have not returned.