I guess the shortest definition of triggers is events in our past that cause us to relive the pain of their occurrence. You relive the trauma, and the pain of something that happened long ago seeps into your consciousness.

It can be compared to PTSD, I suppose.

The topic of triggers was first brought to my attention as a concern that universities had with including specific issues in the classroom, which might serve as triggers for students.

Not everyone was agreed to this institutional sensitivity, and we began reading about “Snowflakes,” students who were fragile and “not as tough as we were.”

The trouble is that I just turned sixty-nine and I may be a Senior Snowflake.

I don’t know what it is, but I can shed a tear at the drop of a hat.

Yankee Old Timers Day was getting to me. Of course, the fact that the Yankees scheduled Old Timers Day for my sixty-ninth birthday may have had something to do with it.

It’s not just the crying, which can be embarrassing when you are flying home from New York, and you have your headphones on listening to your summer playlist and reading the book that your daughter gave you for Father’s Day. It’s also reliving a sanitation truck broadsiding you while you are driving and trying to remain calm and collected. Cool is out of the question in Florida. Currently, 95 as I type.

The thing is we all have triggers that cause us angst if not downright emotional upheaval so let’s go easy on the kids. I don’t know about your Millennials or Gen Ex-ers, but mine are special people, and I love them dearly.

Sorry, I have to go now…no tissues by the computer.