That Smell

 This was written on Sat. night....but interrupted.  The daughter and fiance are here now ! : )

     It's something how one small thing can trigger the memory of painful times.  Our daughter and her fiance are arriving tomorrow, to visit for 2 weeks here at our home...and then another additional week up north with the extended family...(I'm going with them to visit : ) )  Anyway...it's quite a BIG deal around here...being that we haven't seen our daughter for a YEAR (can you feel my emphasis?)..and even more strange...she's engaged to an Australian guy that my husband/her dad has NEVER MET yet !    I did get to know the fiance (Shaun) 2 yr.s ago when I visited them both in San Diego for a week...when S( my husband)couldn't get away from work to go with me...and yes...he's wonderful,...even though they do live in Australia,...but plan to move to the U.S. in a few years, after my daughter is done with graduate school..but I digress. 

   O.K....so, truly...it's been shape up central here at the homefront....S and I have been busting butt to get everything all looking good,...the house in order,...touch up painting, hanging new drapes...you name it.   We're having a big engagement party for them here next weekend on the 13th....yes, D is coming here from Fla. to attend and will be here from Fri. to Mon..   So....early this evening.....I went into the bedroom to look into the drawers that they can use for their clothes while staying here (and yeah..that's a whole other thing...them staying here together in the same room, ...but they live together...so really...).  I wanted to make sure they were all cleaned  out,..etc.,...and the dresser that's in the bedroom I just put together (we're empty nesters now...yaay) was from D's old room...and lo and behold...in the top drawer in the corner of the drawer...what was it I found ?   A small amount of pot/weed....are we surprised ?...um...no...but still,..it caught me off guard.  I really had thought that we'd purged every last iota of what D had in this house, not that he really had leftovers.   But don't ever count him out on that ...

 For some crazy reason...I picked up some of it between my fingers and crushed it with my fingernails....and smelled it, to be sure it really was what I thought it was...um...yeah...very much so.  The smell of it struck me so strongly....brought back such memories of painful, terrible times with D...that it gave me an instant and strong feeling of sadness and pain.  It was like an immediate journey backward to bad times and bad feelings. Two things that can instantly do that are often music and smells,...powerful memory triggers.  D's big problem became cocaine....although there were certainly many other side drugs along the way....but weed had always been a constant, and also where he started,...and continued with, and sold....oh man, did he sell it.  : (   That was what was his most common legal problem.  God knows we could never keep ziplock baggies in stock in our house....ugh.     Sooo, as a result, the smell of weed is something that is just like a punch in the stomach for me, strongly...way too many painful associations.  Ironic....considering my fondness for it during the '70s. 


  Anyway....sights, sounds, smells,.....triggers for us, as well as them.  I still am adjusting to not cringing at the sight of police, the sound of sirens , ...and obviously....that smell.  Time will tell...