While my eyesight continually worsens with age, I am incredibly surprised to witness my sense of smell getting stronger.
I remember going crazy when my mother would cart us from hotel room to hotel room during trips across the country because she said one or more of them smelled like mold.
As a child, they all smelled the exact same to me and I just had to take her word for it, regardless of how frustrated it made us all. We would balk and squirm, constantly annoyed at the thought of picking up our suitcases and walking to a different room yet again after having done so three times prior. But nowadays I completely understand in part why my mother lost her mind a lot over odors over the years. When your olfactory sense gets attuned with the surrounding environment, you can’t simply “turn it off” like you would with a button or switch. Now you’re smelling odors that you would normally ignore or fail to notice altogether, which could be liberating in some ways. For instance, I can often detect by aroma alone whether or not my food is done cooking inside the oven. This is especially noticeable when I bake fresh cookies or pizza, but I’m noticing it with other foods as well. Because of my sensitive sense of smell, I have to keep my air conditioner cleaned and in as pristine of shape as humanly possible. If I don’t keep the air conditioner cleaned, I notice a musty odor whenever it turns on and starts to cycle.