Memories

Isn't it strange how the human mind can connect a certain area, scent, taste, or item to something in its past? As a slightly impulsive, overly OCD (I'm getting better at touching door handles!!) person, I connect everything from apples to colors to certain things.

For example...

1) Lavender soap- When I was eighteen (I think) I climbed a tree in the woods and jumped off with this grand plan of soaring over the treetops on wings of grandeur and adolescent invincibility. Instead, I crash landed on the logs below and slipped on slow, cracking my forehead open. I had to get stitches -HELL YEAH, STITCHES, I'M NOW BADASS- and it took weeks of healing. The entire time we used lavender soap to clean my head. EVERY DAY. Whenever I smell lavender now I instantly think of agony, blood, and ADOLESCENT ANGST (Strangely enough, the soap at work is blackberry bliss something or other and it brings back the same memory so maybe that soap wasn't lavender).

2) Titanic- The soundtrack, not the movie. When I was young, I used to go south to ride horses with my older sister in the country. I remember hearing the soundtrack for the first time on that trip down to the ranch. Everyone knows that as a child, car rides are extremely long. An hour feels like light-years. Well, hearing that soundtrack for such a long trip imprinted on my mind. Now when I hear the music from the movie, I remember that GIANT hill at the ranch and the long trip down there. Titanic was also the first CD I owned. I blame my sister for instilling this obsessive love for soundtracks in me.

3) My brown comforter- I had a cat for ten years. She was my BFF. At a very angry (and stupid) time of my life, I stayed at my sister's house for a few days only to get a call that my cat was dead. When I came home, she was lying on my brown comforter. We had to wash her blood from that comforter. After that, I bought a new one but when I pulled the brown one out today while the other was in the wash, I still recalled that fateful day that my life began to turn around.

4) Dandelions- When I was little, I used to pretend with my sister that we were dogs, cats, dinosaurs, and Jedi knights. One day, we were adventuring in the backyard. I think our skit that day was something with either dogs or lions and I had crossed her somehow (I probably ate her deer or stepped on the swingset- ENEMY TERRITORY, BABY!!!). She jumped on my and broke my baby tooth. All I remember were bright dandelions around me and HORRIBLE AGONY! Now when I see dandelions for the first time each year I shudder.