In the land of the sweeter smelling

[etherealfionna]

I’ve been finding it hard lately to not smoke, tempted to bum a cigarette or even go out to buy my own. When I quit last year, I found a lot of the so-called benefits to be untrue (unsurprisingly, given how anti-smoking society is) - my skin got much drier, the world smelt a worse (I’ve always had a really sensitive sense of smell), and I was sick for most of the winter. When I started cycling to work in the spring, I found that my lungs seemed to burn just as badly at the end of the journey, and it took me several months to get my speed and average journey time back to the level it was at when I smoked.

But there are advantages, and to encourage myself to stay a nonsmoker I’ll list them:

• I don’t have a constant cough, nor need to keep on clearing my throat
• I don’t feel self-conscious around nonsmokers about how I smell
• though my skin is drier, it wasn’t exactly dry to start with, and now after moisturizing it looks much healthier than before
• I can sit in a three hour meeting without fidgeting, and can face long journeys without having to work out when I can next smoke
• my teeth are much much whiter now --> this is because of all the gum I chew, I think, instead of any lack of nicotine
• now that I’m fit, I’m fitter than I could be as a smoker, my lung capacity is greater, and I probably feel much better
• I can be quite cutting to the smug anti-smokers

ETA

• My neighbour smiles at me instead of scowls at me