I don’t smoke cigarettes; I never have. Years go in another life though, long before I met my husband, I had a crush on a man I used to work with. He was a smoker. I never had the guts to show my feelings to him, so some days after he had left work, I would go to his office. I would sit in his chair and breathe in the faint scent of smoke mixed in with his cologne that still lingered in the air. I smiled just knowing that he had been here only hours before. That was as close as I could get to him and for me that was enough. Years have passed by; my school girl crush is long over; and I have grown up.

This weekend, I finally got around to unpacking all of our suitcases from our trip to Europe. All the clothes, even the ones I never took out of the suitcases smelled of smoke. Two full bags of dry cleaning and seven loads of laundry later, I have finally washed all that smoky scent out of our cloths. Going though the suitcases though, with my nostrils filled with the smell of smoke, I was reminded of so many late nights of talking, laughing, drinking and dinning with good friends we had met in Europe. All the smoke is gone now, but my memories still linger on, making me smile with nostalgia and longing.