Scent Memories

"Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again."
--Willa Cather, My Antonia

It's amazing how many memories we can store. And it's even more interesting how and when the memories are triggered to pop up. Whether it's walking by a building that you remember going to long ago and the sight of it unexpectedly brings up those memories. Or hearing some sound, a train whistle or the gentle lapping of waves along the shore, which triggers a memory of a special time. Or smelling a scent that immediately takes you back to a time or place you hadn't been thinking about. It's this last one that has surprised me repeatedly in the last week or two.

After rummaging around in the glove compartment in my car to put my new registration in there, I found some car air fresheners that I believe I bought soon after I got my car (yes, they've apparently been sitting in there for about 4 years). It was one of those little trees that hangs from your rearview mirror and smells like pine, or at least is supposed to smell like pine (those never really quite smell like what they're supposed to smell like). So I decided to hang it up and no sooner had I opened up the package than I was jerked back 4 years to the winter of 2002 when I last had one of those hung up in my car. The scent immediately brought me back to what was a wonderful time while I was in the midst of it but now brings with it many mixed emotions. In the winter of 2002 I was doing pretty well health-wise, just finishing up 6 months of IV antibiotics that seemed to give me back some semblance of my life, but most importantly it was the beginning of a serious relationship that changed my life. During that relationship I usually did most of the driving since his car was...well, not in the best winterized shape (he had no heat in his car). Sitting there in my car the other day, I was brought back to an afternoon spent driving around doing Christmas shopping and just being so happy to be together. To seemingly normal, uneventful drives to the movies, to go out to eat, and a million other simple events that together form a ball of memories that always seem to bounce back up when I'm not expecting it. That relationship was one of the happiest times in my life so far but brings with it memories of one of the most difficult times in my life.

I can deal with health problems, I can deal with not being able to go out and do "normal" things, I can deal with tests and being poked and prodded but when it comes to relationships, not necessarily romantic relationships but just relationships with people in general, there is a much higher danger of getting hurt. Putting your heart out there can be amazing, can bring a level of closeness and happiness that simply can't be felt by guarding yourself, but it brings with it the danger of being sliced open. Our hearts are fragile things and, once broken, they can take an eternity to heal and perhaps can never be fully healed but always left with the scars of our lives. No matter how many times we are hurt, we have to find a way to patch up our wounds and not live the rest of our lives with a shield around our hearts and our lives.

So I got hurt...badly. He didn't hurt me on purpose. It wasn't an act of malevolence. It was one of those things that just happens. When a relationship ends, most of the time someone is going to get hurt. And I was just that unlucky person. I had put myself so much into that relationship, for once I felt ”normal” in some capacity. I had a boyfriend. I was going out to the movies or just sitting around at home and watching TV. I was going out to eat. I was cooking him dinner. I was ”normal”! I was doing what so many other people my age were doing. For the first time in a long time, I was able to concentrate on something other than my health and it was an amazing feeling. And then it crashed down around me and I was left devastated, in a state that I still have not quite recovered from. I don’t know if I ever really want to fully recover – I feel that the scars left from that very difficult time will remind me of how good things can be as well as how bad they can end up. And both the good and bad times of that relationship, and so many other things in my life, have shaped me and changed me, hopefully for the better.

So you can see the difficulty I’ve had with that little, usually insignificant, unremarkable green tree hanging from my rearview mirror. Every time I open up the door of my car, I get a whiff of that pine scent and a surge of memories with it. My first instinct when this happened and really surprised me was to take down the little tree, throw it away, and note to never buy a car air freshener of that scent again. But I fought that urge. I don’t want that scent to be forever connected to those mixed emotions. I want to overcome that, in a way, and reprogram my mind (or nose) to be able to associate that smell with other things and not just be so overcome with memories that I may not want to be forced to think about when I’m driving around. Maybe that will be much more difficult than I hope. Maybe I’ll get to a point where I can’t take it anymore and have to just throw that little tree away and never buy that scent again. Or maybe I’ll just need to surrender to those memories and find a way to not be overtaken by them whenever they pop up. Maybe that scent will help me remember that time when I was “normal” and so happy. We must have these sense memories for a reason. And we must take the bad memories with the good. Maybe it will help me remember that we all must be careful how we treat others.

"Be kind - everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."--John Watson

Yours,
Penguini