The Meltdown

The words came out like they would've if I was having one of my melodramatic meltdowns. You know, one of those complete mental breakdowns where you ask yourself, “Why?”, over and over and you roll around in bed wallowing in your emotional pain for a few hours. My meltdowns aren't usually like that. I lay on the bathroom floor in my winter jacket, repeating famous quotes on life, and reenacting personal scenes in which I fall victim to the fates of the world.
These words, however small, came out with so much umph that it caught my full attention. I was rummaging through everything in my room. Tossing aside any inanimate object that wasn't damned to a life of burgundy flower print.
I'm headed out tomorrow to stay at my sisters. She has an apartment in New York and I'm going to stay there for the weekend. It's a chance to get away from my daily stresses. I find it slightly ironic for me to be getting away from stress by going to one of the most stressful cities in the country, but I'll try anything. I would be able to finish my packing if I could just find my hideous makeup bag. I'm supposed to be sleeping, but I can't sleep knowing that I've misplaced yet another item of importance.
I get down on my hands and knees and press my face to the scratchy pink rug. I glance around under my bed. Boxes and boxes full of papers and from this view point it looks like I have a heavy smoking habit. Empty Marlboro packs lay scattered beneath my bed, having accumulated over the past few months. The sight only makes me wonder why I can't remember where I put that hideous bag since science has supposedly proven that nicotine improves focus and memory. I stood, frustrated, and paced a few feet, then let the exasperated words pound out of me.
I had startled myself and reacted by staring into the empty space where the phrase seemed to loom around me.
“I'm so lost.”
I had meant to say it jokingly and almost meaninglessly. I only meant I was completely lost on where the ugly makeup bag was last placed. But that phrase, Those words,They lingered in the air like a noxious gas. I suddenly felt suffocated. I cocked my head to one side; wondering how three short words could come out in such an oddly overpowering shock wave. It continued to resonate over and over in my skull till I was shallow breathing and collapsed in fear.
I slowly dropped to my knees, hugging myself and hyperventilating. I pressed my cheek to the rug once again. Warm and scratchy and smelling of laundry, mud and smoke. I saw no mud and I haven't done laundry in a week or two. I also don't smoke in the house. The smell was calming, distracting in a way. I've heard people sometimes can't notice their own scent. Maybe people don't notice it until they need to. Maybe it's our own scent that calms us.
It would be interesting is someone could know everything about you just from the way you smell. I don't know if it would be possible though. Take the smell of the carpet thats pressed against my face for example. I can say I smell of clean laundry,mud and cigarettes but the reasons as to what that means about me, are hidden away beneath my skin. I can tell you that my laundry detergent is homemade on the stove top out of borax ,water and bars of soap. I can tell you I live in the woods, on a lake, and walk through mud multiple times a day when walking to and from the bus stop. I can tell you I have at least one cigarette everyday. However, this still doesn't tell you who I am. All you know is my scent and if your intelligent, my mental stability.