✨ Episode 16: I Tried Aromatherapy and Now My Emotions Smell Like Lemongrass ✨

It began with Carl dragging a dusty box labeled "Scented Emotional Calibration: Experimental" out from the back of the hall closet we both pretend doesn’t exist. It sits wedged between an expired dreamcatcher and a VHS tape labeled "Unfinished Therapy, Vol. 3." He claimed it was time I embraced the olfactory arts, or what he called, with grave monocled sincerity, "The Scentual Path to Emotional Liberation."

Carl, a monocled cactus who has recently taken up micro-dosing incense cones, explained the theory while stirring a teacup filled with rosemary and unresolved expectations. According to him, smells were the oldest form of emotional memory, and therefore, the most honest. "We lie with words, postures, dreams, and taxes," Carl announced, "but never with the nose."

This led to the great Aromatherapy Experiment.

First up was lemongrass. Carl burned a long, curling stick of lemongrass-infused incense while chanting something that sounded suspiciously like a Pizza Hut jingle. Within seconds, my eyes welled up.

"Oh no," I muttered.

"Oh yes," Carl grinned.

The scent didn’t just smell like lemongrass. It was middle school. The entire awkward, hormonal ecosystem of it. My first deodorant. My frenemy Dakota's passive-aggressive compliments. The time I tried to write a song about existentialism but accidentally plagiarized Avril Lavigne. Every whiff brought another memory: braces, anxiety, and the smell of cafeteria pizza forever tattooed on my spirit.

Carl took notes on a scroll he claimed was made from recycled horoscopes.

"Lemongrass: potent trigger of pubescent despair," he recorded. "Potentially weaponizable."

Next up: lavender.

I expected calm. Tranquility. A whisper of Provence.

Instead: rage.

Burning lavender oil ignited something primal. I stomped around the apartment, muttering insults in fake Shakespearean. I argued with my own reflection. I accused the couch of betrayal.

"THIS SCENT BETRAYED ME," I hissed at the cushion.

Carl merely nodded, scribbling, "Lavender: elicits suppressed matriarchal fury. Possibly related to 2006 birthday incident."

I didn’t know what he meant by that. Then I remembered: my mom gave me a lavender bath set instead of the haunted mermaid doll I asked for. I buried it in the backyard and blamed it for the squirrels acting weird.

By the time we got to peppermint, I was nervous.

Peppermint, it turned out, smelled like disappointment wrapped in cheer. I started laughing hysterically and then crying halfway through the laugh. It felt like opening a Christmas gift and finding a reminder to love myself. Bitter. Sweet. Medicinal.

That’s when the candle started talking.

A tall, off-white pillar of wax with faint glitter in its flame. It flickered once and said, in a gentle voice with a hint of British sarcasm, "You’re not aromantic, dear. You're just emotionally confused."

I blinked. "You can talk?"

"I’m a Sentiflame candle. I specialize in aromatic truth-telling. It’s not a skill, it’s a curse."

"I don’t recall lighting you."

"I lit myself. It was time."

Carl was unfazed. He offered the candle a biscotti.

The candle declined politely, citing a gluten allergy.

Over the next several days, our apartment transformed into an emotional aromatherapy jungle. Every room smelled like something I hadn’t dealt with. Cinnamon gave me impostor syndrome. Sandalwood made me crave validation from strangers in sweaters. Frankincense triggered mild hallucinations of my high school Spanish teacher whispering, "Estás evitando tus emociones."

Carl started wearing an essential oil diffuser as a hat. It steamed eucalyptus while he meditated in the sink.

The candle became a sort of therapy companion, offering unsolicited advice during dinner and existential check-ins at 2 a.m.

"Are you feeling emotionally spicy or just projecting onto paprika again?" it asked once as I tried to make curry.

I threw a carrot at it. It absorbed the gesture and called me brave.

By the end of the week, my emotional palette was reorganized like a spice rack after a nervous breakdown. I could no longer separate memory from smell. Bergamot? My failed audition for the middle school play. Pine? That weird phase I had where I only wore forest green and quoted Thoreau. Orange blossom? A brief friendship with a mime.

Then came the Day of the Blends.

Carl, in his infinite experimental glory, mixed several scents together to create what he called "Aroma Archetypes."

The Parental Wound Blend: A concoction of cedarwood, black tea, and subtle judgment. The Romantic Delusion Blend: Rose, vanilla, and the sound of someone ghosting you mid-text. The Existential Ennui Blend: A haunting brew of myrrh, dust, and whatever the smell of an unread philosophy book is.

"Do you feel like crying in French yet?" Carl asked after the Ennui blend.

"I feel like giving up on understanding myself and moving to a yurt," I replied.

The candle whispered, "Healthy impulse."

Somewhere around Tuesday, I lost all grip on olfactory objectivity. A random waft of patchouli sent me into a spiraling monologue about past lives and the ethics of reincarnating as a moth. I sniffed thyme and wept about lost time. I accused the rosemary sprig in our kitchen of knowing too much.

Carl simply observed, offering me occasional notes like, "You’re emotionally fermenting. It’s good."

Things reached a peak when I began narrating my life like a perfume commercial.

"In a world where clarity smells like burnt oranges and regret, comes a scent... that reminds you of everyone who said you were too much."

I had to sit down. The floor smelled like college dorms and poorly timed crushes.

The candle, now half melted and wearing a crocheted scarf, flickered gently. "What you’re experiencing is scent-based ego exfoliation."

"Is that even a thing?"

"It is now," Carl said. He high-fived the candle. Somehow.

Eventually, I did what any emotionally scent-shocked human would do.

I opened all the windows.

Let the fresh air in.

Breathed in the bland, undefined neutrality of the outside world. A breeze that didn’t know my childhood trauma. A gust that wasn’t trying to fix me. Just... air. Regular, unprocessed, aromatherapy-free air.

And it was beautiful.

I turned to Carl. "I think I’m scentually exhausted."

"Yes," he said. "That means you’re ready."

"For what?"

He didn’t answer. Instead, he released a final vial of unknown essential oil labeled simply: ???

I sniffed.

I smelled nothing.

And everything.

The candle flickered knowingly.

"Growth never smells like what you think it will," it said.

Carl smiled. "And sometimes... it smells like lemongrass and middle school."

I laughed.

And then cried.

And then lit a new candle.

Just to see what happened.