8.11.25: Childhood Nostalgia

There’s this smell that lives somewhere between sunscreen, rubber hose, and warm chlorine. It instantly snaps me back to childhood summers. I don’t know where it comes from, but whenever it shows up, I stop mid-step. It’s like my brain goes, “We’ve been here before.” Back to water fights, popsicles, scraped knees, and that weird freedom that only exists before your first heartbreak or bank account. I’ve spent years trying to bottle that scent. But it only visits randomly, like a memory ghost. Every time it does, I let it linger. Then it disappears again.