Janet Banks is a retired business executive and writer who is exploring the joys and challenges of aging in real time. Her personal essays have been published in Cognoscenti. She has also published in the Harvard Business Review and contributed commentary regarding career development to numerous publications. She and her husband live in Boston’s Back Bay.
At 13, I never hear anyone use the words “slut, whore, bitch,” until they are said to me, about me. Brain damage, in one area of my skull. Straight A’s in the other.