For a long time now I have hated the smell of nail polish. There is no specific reason why I hate the smell, or at least not in any way that relates to painted nails. You see the smell reminds me of hospitals, and really one particular hospital and one particular experience. A defining one. The kind of experience that links itself to an certain kind of smell.
I have always found myself attaching memory to scent. I am sure there is some scientific legitimacy to this idea. I cannot say, and finding out is not the point of whatever this is. For my own story, every single event that has made the person penning this, has been indelibly attached to a smell. Like wood or gasoline or nail polish.
This is one of many examples.
When I was 15 years old I was angry. That sounds quite cliche I know, but it is the only I know to describe my problem. I wanted and longed for something. Maybe it was affection from others or some sense of reason or purpose. Either way, it made me hate all that I saw in the mirror. I had those in my life that would care for me, but it was not enough, and so I was certain I must take my own life. I was sure that if I was dead or had almost died then people would really care, not just care out of obligation. How truly awful is that? I used suicide to try and make the people did actually care, care more. I have no way to really explain why I did this.
My first love came to me at this time, and maybe that is why I was such a mess. I had never really known how mysterious and beautiful a woman could be. How like trying to hold water they could be. Up till now women were mom, sister and the other. Andrea tore open my chest and left me vulnerable, and I loved every moment. We spoke as much as possible, and spent all our time together. Her parents hated me, and as a parent I am sure would have felt the same. I was a wreck in all the ways a parent fears the most. But I loved her and she loved me. It no small way my love for her was also because she was the first girl who let me touch her. Not my first kiss though, but my first body buzz. You know that sense of warmth and confusion that only learning sexuality can explain. She was all I wanted all the time. How foolish it all sounds now.
I would never love like this again. There was just no way it could be possible. Life must be all down hill at this point. So I took a bottle of prescription strength Tylenol to seal it up. I would entomb my love and it would last forever. Doesn't that sound so romantic? It should, because it is a lie. Many things that are romantic are 40 percent lie. Look it up.
I took the pills because the anger said to do it. So I did, and later on did it again. This time it was around 9 pm. How odd I should be so sure of the time? I had been sleeping and I remember looking at the clock. I have often reflected on the possibility of it being something in my dream that drove me, but it is to fuzzy to know.
So I took them, and when I did I was so sure of the need to do it. It felt good to really control something. My life, the most important thing, was under my control so I would exert that control. I felt power.
Then when my mom came home and I looked into her tired eyes, I knew I had done something horrible. I also became distinctly aware that I would do it again. So I told her what I had done but not the truth of what my intention was. I told her I had a stomach ache and took too many. I was in a considerable amount of pain at this point, and begged her to drive me to the hospital. The closest hospital was several miles over in the next town, along the way I confessed my true intention of suicide. Only I was not really sure what that meant, so I just said I wanted to stop the pain. The absurdity of wanting to stop pain with further pain seems woven into the human condition. We fight wars to save lives. So I confessed that I just wanted it all to stop, and I took pills to do it.
She immediately began to cry and feverishly ask why I had done it. Why did I want to die? I said I did not want to die, I just wanted it all to stop. I wanted to stop being angry all the time. Living inside of such frustrated confusion was too much for my young heart. If only I had spoken those very words to her then, she might have understood. As it was all I could do was cry and repeat how I just wanted it to all stop. I am sure she never understood. It is my mind and it has taken twenty years to understand it myself.
She rushed me to the emergency room. From here the memory becomes quite blurry. I remember they tried to get me to drink charcoal which would absorb the Tylenol. In case you are wondering drinking charcoal is exactly as awful as it sounds. You are consuming a liquefied charcoal substance. To this day I can taste it. Each time I would try to drink it I would throw up. Each time I threw up my mother would cry. And with each cry I could feel my shame consume my everything. I remember vomiting so many times that at the end I passed out from exhaustion.
The next time I woke up I was being given some kind of clear liquid medication. It was early morning and a nurse was coaxing me awake to take my medication. The nurse had glasses and gave me a concerned mother look. She looked middle age with blond hair. With a mothers tongue she told me I had to finish the whole container, or I would have to get charcoal again. I finished the medicine without hesitation. Why should I recall this nurse I cannot say. I never saw her again for the three days I was at the hospital under observation, which really means suicide watch. The one thing that sticks out most of all was the powerful scent of nail polish. Before my eyes had opened I could smell it. Possibly the nurse had just painted her nails. That is the only explanation I can think of and should not care to find another. What I will say is that I will always have an instant link to that place in my time. By choice or not I go there every time my wife paints her nails.
When you are young it seems like you can feel the entire world all at once. Even as your every action may be truly selfish.
For every memory that fills my story
there is a smell
an odor that will
forever link my present
bridged through the mind
into the forever that is my past
The scents of memory
tickles my nose
whispers into my ears
do no forget
this is who you are
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