Yesterday I bought an old favorite of mine, Estée Lauder Beautiful Sheer. Apparently it is being discontinued. I managed to purchase one of the last three bottles in the store.

I wore this scent on a trip to Harare, Zimbabwe a few weeks before I left South Africa. It invokes memories for me. Good and bad and pain on my then soft heart.

But today! I am wearing it again. And I am back in Harare. With my perfume and my children then still babies, and a new future ahead of me.

And my heart is no longer as soft. The years and scars and experiences and feelings have toughened it up.

The scent, though, still lingers.