Old dogs and impossible loves

Well I have a fleece jacket that got too smelly to wear. When sweat dries and is not washed it becomes very musty smelling, like mildew. It got to the point where I was in the car with the fleece next to me on the seat, smelling so bad I had to put it into the trunk. I figured one washing would clear out the BO smell but it had no effect at all - cuz our washing machine is too poor to work with. So I washed the fleece by hand in the tub and so much filth came out that it formed erosion patterns on the porcelain. I did that several times, then used Head-and-Shoulders (it was there next to the tub) to wash it more. Then it stank of Head-and-Shoulders . So I washed it in rainwater a couple more times.

When I finally got rid of my BO smell, it still smelled bad. When I got rid of the filth it smelled perfumey from the shampoo. And when I got rid of those smells there was still the faint smell of old dog. I guess my wife, who wanted to throw out the fleece, finally succeeded in getting rid of all the residual smells by soaking the damn fleece in baking soda and leaving it in the sun.

But what is interesting, and the subject of this post, is how the smells were in layers. Getting rid of one strong smell, only made it possible to smell the remains of some older smell. And the last smell to go was this old dog smell. Now something similar is happening in my brain as I train it to stop thinking about an impossible love relation. At first it was "red brain" - all signals were tied to one face. It took a 2 months for those to die down and a similar time for her being near [I know her footsteps] to stop hurting. And my brain definitely went into a quieter mode recently. I had a dream of being near and comforted by her presence even though my discipline, even in a dream, did not permit me to look at her face. But the recent dream shows a milder, residual form of obsession. As the red brain recedes, like the BO smell, it unmasks older, simpler, less obsessed versions. Today I am only sad when I hear her footsteps, but it does not hurt anymore and the face does not keep popping into mind constantly.

As the song " Ain't no tellin' " says:

I'm standing at the station

Wondering where's that train?

I lost my darling

Now I've got all red brain.