The first time the DH deployed, I didn’t realize just how much he contributed to the smell of our home. I assumed our smell was from most of the (horrible) cooking I did, nasty diapers, and a big ole’ husky in the great Louisiana heat. Over the following months, and the following deployments, I have come to recognize the value of his smells and the ability of the human nose (even on a bad day!). The most obvious is his shampoo and soap. The DH is the type of person than can take a shower, and then four hours later I can still smell that soap smell without having to lay my nose directly on his skin. His body just holds this wonderfully manly smell in and emits it in slow, flavorful bursts. Along with that, however, is his body’s ability to hold in nasty smells from time in the field. It also is emitted in slow bursts, yet it’s not such a desirable flavor. It is logical to recognize (and take for granted) those smells while your DH is here, however once he deploys your home slowly becomes void of those manly-soapy smells that are uniquely his. You won’t immediately miss it, either. Not until you are flat out crying on the floor of the shower (because you used his shampoo) that you realize how much you tie the that smell. Like Pavlov’s dogs, that smell would lead to some other memory that leads you to bawling like a baby on the floor. It is after incidents like that when you remove his toiletry items for fear of smelling that brink of crazy-loneliness again.
————————————
I am grocery shopping in the Commissary while on the phone with my girlfriend. I am reliving the latest FRG drama that we have had to endure this deployment cycle when I lose my mind completely. I forget where I am, I have forgotten who is on the phone, or even what day it is. I have crossed paths with some unlucky individual who happens to be wearing my DH’s cologne. His cologne, his deodorant, hell, maybe he wiped with scented toilet paper, I don’t know. I do know that I have only one thought and that it takes everything I have left in me to (1) keep my clothes on, and (2) not drool at the mouth. I am quickly reminded of Edward and Bella and the whole your blood sings for me business. Can you smell horniness? Maybe not.
———————————–
I miss the smell of someone (my DH) cooking. It’s not the smell of food in the house. Instead it is the smell while I am entering the house that is the most heartwarming. It gives way to the notion that the houses exists for others (other than myself), and that it can house those individuals while I am not in it. Currently, the only smell I am getting is Eau’de-dog-in-the-kennel. Yum.
———————————-
I miss the smell that his skin leaves in the bed. Regardless of the sex smell, just the HUMAN smell of someone other than myself. Other pheromones, other skin cells, other matter…not just mine! I often wonder what he thinks when we returns to a house that no longer smells as it did when he left. Or has he been gone so long that he can’t remember the old smell until it comes around again? I usually keep shirts that he has worn and then sleep with them in the bed. Over time, however, I change their smell and the meaning goes out the door with it.
——————————–
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t stink – but I am tired of smelling myself.
I can relate. I totally miss the smell of my husband. He too can magically hold in that soap and cologne scent all day. Maybe its just something about men’s products, I don’t know. While I’ve thought about putting his cologne on a shirt or smelling his soap, I can’t bring myself to do it because of the things you mentioned. I wanted to put a little on the girls’ daddy dolls so they could start to associate them with his smell but nope I’m too selfish as I’m not sure I could handle smelling it.
Good news – we’re 1/3 of the way finished with this deployment. Yippee!
[…] info By klbuley Categories: Uncategorized We have already talked about smell, touch, and sight (2 times). Let us move with hearing forward before the wheels fall […]