Polo

You know that association between smell and memories? Olfactory memory, I believe it’s called. Well, it happens to me plenty of times. But whenever it’s the scent of that Polo cologne you would always wear, it always throws off my emotions.

The first time I remember smelling it in months happened while at work. A guest practically drenched himself and passed by me as the trail of his cologne lingered behind him. I caught a whiff of it and I quickly took notice. What… what is that? I know that smell. I stood there in full concentration trying to piece together this mystery in my mind. Scent to memory. But what memory and whose scent?

Yours. I realized it after what seemed like minutes. Suddenly, the feeling of confusion, then realization quickly turned to sadness. The emotional roller coaster that happened in practically the speed of light was so overwhelming. Get it together. It’d been so long. Even just the faintest scent of your cologne could make me feel happy, yet sad at the same time.

I think about the remnants of us. I think about what once was and I think about if there still is. There’s no doubt in my mind there always will be. But as of right now, we still have a lot of growing up to do. It has been quite some time since… since us, but how do we measure time when we were all over the place: sporadic, almost. Play, then pause… back to play; it’s a cycle that kept going even when we thought it was done. Except now, we’ve been on pause for a long while… unless this is truly the end. I know deep down, though, it’s not.

It’s hard nowadays. We try to be normal around each other, but we’ve never known normal. We were always just us, in our own little world. I’ve been trying, honestly… to be normal. But what I remember our ‘normal’ being… was us living in this lie. At least a lie to everyone else, but we were happy.