Today, while thumbing through a box that I haven’t yet unpacked from the move, I stumbled across it. An almost empty bottle of the ex’s cologne. No doubt taken as a souvenir of the comfortable, (not to mention completely bland) life that I was leaving years ago. Against my better judgment, I unscrewed the cap and took a whiff of the smell that comforted me all those years ago. I had the incredible urge to bathe my linens in it and bury myself in them and just…inhale. But I thought better of it. (Being that I don’t want to die by Hugo inhalation. Call me crazy.) I felt like if I just smelled it enough, the sense of comfort would reappear and I would be cured.

Cured from what, you may ask. It’s simple really.

I am a creature of habit. Hence the cigarette addiction and the attachment to “the norm” and my stubborn attitude towards change. Habit is what tends to make me stay in situations that are unfavorable. Habit is what kept me believing that I could change him. That I could mold him. And possibly what kept him there so long as well. And inevitably, what ended the whole thing. I don’t miss him. I miss being comfortable. I miss the feeling that I had today when I smelled that smell.

I am, for the most part, content where I am, but I have discovered that comfort can make or break you. I could have broken today. I was saved by the image that immediately followed the smell. The image of what my life would have been had I not been brave. And there it was. Clarity.