i like smells.

i'm not talking foot odor. i mean that overwhelming reminiscence that comes when you encounter the smell of something familiar. my jacket smells like old sunscreen and vanilla today. it made me smile. my mind flashed to relaxing by the pool and playing cards with new friends this weekend. simultaneously, i was filled with a sense of urgency, because i was feeling a memory i couldn't pull out of my brain archives. do you ever get that feeling? it was like an overload. maybe it was too many memories at once. maybe it's something too repressed and broken. all the same, it fascinates me.

my brain loves polo blue cologne. when i was a sophomore in high school, i smelled it on a boy, and i was never the same. it makes my heart start to race from a mile away still today. when i walk into belk, i try to keep the store scent in my nose before it gets too familiar that i don't notice it. i wish i could bottle that smell, because it's enchanted me since i was a child. there's a strawberry air freshener that my ex-boyfriend's mom used at her house and her office, and everytime i smell something similar i think of all the wonderful laughter we shared together in those places.

the sterile smell of a hospital makes me so nervous i could vomit. it takes me back to feeling so out of control and superstitious. i wasn't there for my grandfather's whirlwind last days in the hospital. his leg got infected with necrotizing fasciitis one weekend, and i stood in the room while he died the next weekend after they'd amputated a quarter of his body. when the boys' accident happened in 2008, i thought if i stayed at the hospital, trea would be OK. trea is great, but i know now that my guilty superstitions were sick. almost as sick as the smell of hospitals. catwalk oatmeal and honey shampoo reminds me of how much i wanted to be like my best friend sara in high school. she was so different. anti-everything, and she made the trends that everyone started trending. open-minded and intelligent, but not cynical. i loved her, and so much of me is still reminiscent of the things she taught me.

i could go on. but as we all know, this blogging thing is self-indulgent. it's really just a place for me to hope someone might care, as much as i say i don't care if you care. i happened upon smells, because i liked my day yesterday. when i'm alone in this office, it gets easy to dwell on the things i've lost. i was going to blog on that miserable subject, but then i leaned over and smelled the wrist of my jacket and remembered God's promise to me. that last sentence may sound odd. maybe this whole blog does.

what i mean to say is that i feel wronged. someone lied to me, as i previously posted. someone i loved with. someone i trusted. someone i admired very much. to be lied to once means it's hard for me to trust anything he ever said or did. it creates confusion over years' worth of time spent building a relationship. i bring this up to say that these feelings of anger, guilt, regret, misery & relief are no one's fault but my own. i put my faith in someone other than God. i let my faith be determined on my surroundings and not the One who i should have trusted with my everything. i said i knew that people would always fail me, but i didn't live that way. i believed one person was incapable of such hurt, and putting that kind of faith and glory into one man was wrong. praise the Lord i'm learning to be a better me for Him.

so i smelled my jacket, and i realized that i have so many new and wonderful people in my life. interesting and unexpected opportunities are popping up, and i'm just trying not to distract myself too much from healing properly. this world is huge, and i'm going to smell and enjoy every inch that i can.