Triggers and Treasures

Exploring how sensory memories hit us without warning, and what they reveal about the versions of ourselves we’re still living as.

Ever catch a smell or hear a song and suddenly you’re not where you were a second ago? Just...bam, you’re twelve again, or thirty, or anywhere but here. Happens to me all the time.

Case in point: Last week, I was driving back from errands with one of the kids, and Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds came up on Spotify. Love that song.

It took me, as it always does, right back to my favorite vacation memory, probably ever.

Several years ago, I was in Puerto Rico with the Balkan Storm (my husband, if you’re new here). We were a few days in, sitting at this little poolside cantina with our drinks, when the sky went from bright to ominous in about thirty seconds.

It was totally normal there; it rained literally every day. We grabbed a deck of cards, took the obligatory “can’t stop this party” photo for social media (the absolute ragers that we are), and kept on playing cards and relaxing as the rain came down.

And then the actual storm rolled in...I’m talking chairs flying past us into the pool, beach umbrellas taking flight, thunder booming, and rain coming in sideways.

The bartender calmly went around pulling down the little shades around us as Three Little Birds started playing on the sound system.

He turned it up, and the entire place (probably all of about 20 people) sang along at the top of our lungs, laughing and singing like lunatics as the storm lashed at us, just fully in it.

It ended up being my favorite part of the whole trip, even better than ziplining through the rainforest. Probably any trip, honestly.

It’s one of those memories I go back to a lot, partly because it’s a fun memory but also because it feels like living proof that even when everything’s chaotic around you, you can still hold on and laugh through it all.

Sometimes that's all you can do.

⚡ If you like this so far, you might also like Beautiful Lies — the origin story of how I learned to romanticize my life without losing my grip on reality.

And every time I hear that song, I’m right back there. That’s the thing about these sensory flashbacks: they transport you.

I can still feel the mist of the rain on my arms, the hard metal chair under me, smell the rum and sunscreen in the air. For a few precious moments, you time travel.

When I make my barbecue chicken, I’m a kid at my grandparents’ house on the Fourth of July, fingers sticky with sauce and chasing my cousins, barefoot with sparklers in each hand. I can see grandpa in his apron and the grown-ups milling about the house.

The smell of turkey in the oven sends me back to my younger days in pajamas on Thanksgiving morning, glued to the Macy’s parade (back when it was actually good), waiting forever to see the Rockettes and eat Mom's turkey and Grandma's Alabama biscuits.

Thanks to Mom, I have that recipe, and every time I bake them (not often, gotta watch those refined carbs), the whole house smells like her kitchen.

Like every home I've made since has been trying to get me back there.

My favorite scent is woodsmoke. It reminds me of bonfires, cozy fireplaces, and summer nights when everything felt slow and relaxed.

A close second is honeysuckle. I used to lick the dew right off the flowers outside my dance studio. It was kind of weird, but totally worth it.

And every time I see a trashy romance novel on a shelf (you know, those Harlequin bodice rippers), I think of my great grandma Searcy. A tiny, white-haired, church-lady who used to devour those things.

She had a whole collection that she brought with her when she moved in with my grandparents. When I was about 17, I asked her why she read them so much, and I’ll never forget what she so matter-of-factly said:

“Honey, just cause there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean there ain’t a fire in the furnace”.

She always did have a way with words and a few other zingers that probably shouldn’t be printed (especially about my uncle’s wife). But if you want those… well, there’s always my Ko-fi… just sayin’.

Still here?

If this hit home, I've got more. Real talk, no life-coach crap.

Subscribe here for early drops, deep cuts, and stuff I don't post anywhere else.

Sometimes, those memories are a safe, warm place to float around in. They make us feel connected to who we were and who we still are.

Other times, there are triggers that hit you like a punch from Canelo. They make you remember things you’ve spent your life trying to forget.

Like a certain cologne that yanks me straight back to my tragic post-divorce era, where I mistook being wanted with being worthy.

Now, every time I pass an Abercrombie, I cringe and laugh, thinking of that dude who wore it way too confidently for his age back then.

Or the phrase "airport salad," which still makes my gut clench, thanks to a violent bout of food poisoning in Costa Rica that had me praying for death in a tiny airplane bathroom.

Certain benign drugstore products still try to drag me places I don’t want to go. One second, I’m grabbing toothpaste; the next, I’m stuck in a memory I'd blocked on purpose.

And my husband is gonna hate this one, but as soon as the first strain of Con Te Partirò begins to play, I inwardly cringe because it’s a beautiful song, sure, but he cranks it up at such earsplitting levels in the house because he loves it so much, that now I dread it. Sorry, babe.

And that’s really the thing: these smells and songs and random triggers remind me I’m not just this current, polished (yeah, right) version of myself.
I’m all of them:
The barefoot kid with sparklers
The scared child who didn't know how to voice what was happening to her
The heartbroken divorcee undervaluing herself
The teenager taking notes from a spicy great-grandma

They're all still here, reminding me what parts I've kept, what I've let go, and what still needs working out.

We talk a lot about being "present” and reinventing. But you can't really move forward if you pretend the past didn't happen.

The treasures and the triggers both matter.
They remind us to own every part of our story and show us who we are, even when we wish they wouldn't.

That's what makes us real.

That's the thing about nostalgia: It's seemingly something small, like a song or a scent, possibly a familiar face on a movie poster.

Sometimes, what sticks with us isn't just a memory but an icon, a symbol we've assigned meaning to. Something we've carried from one version of ourselves to the next until it becomes both a comfort and a beacon.

I know some people have “comfort characters”—fictional heroes they use as emotional life rafts. I never had one of those.

I've admired plenty (both real and imagined), but I’ve never needed a single character to get through something. But I get it.

The closest I've come (and honestly still do) is Marvel.
Which sounds...honestly kind of tragic now that I see that all typed out.

But hey, when you grow up watching superheroes while praying for a real-life one, you take what you can get.

Now it’s something my daughter and I share as our own weird little love language.

I've got one small shelf in my office with Marvel merch I’ve been gifted (which I love).
She's got a closet full of character tees, a phone covered in wallpapers, and enough posters and collectibles to open her own booth at Comic-Con.

Her devotion is loud and proud. Mine's subtler, except for the part where I constantly write about it on a public platform like it's a coping mechanism.
(Which...yeah. I should probably look into that.)

But it’s our thing. The movies, the inside jokes, the debates about who would win in a fight, it’s something that connects us and anchors us in a world that keeps changing.

A small comfort that takes us back just enough...while still nudging us forward.

Maybe that’s the whole point.

These moments are more than just memories. They’re evidence. They’re the fingerprints we’ve left on the world and the ones it left on us.

And you can't do anything with them except decide which ones deserve a place in your life now.

Because like it or not, they’re all coming with you.

Heather P. is an essayist and longtime ghostwriter publishing unapologetic stories about trauma, reinvention, and the absurdity of real life.

Creator of Unfinished Business, a platform reaching readers in over 20 countries for its dark humor, emotional precision, and refusal of performative healing, whether the story is about grief, growth, or just getting through Tuesday.