Smoking revisited
And here we are with the smoking again. I know I've got to do something about it. My reliance on cigarettes and booze has lessened considerably since Tampa, but the smoking still has me on a tight leash. And all week, I've been coughing. It would be easy to blame it on the weather and the cold, but I know very well this is not a seasonal cough. This is a smoking cough. Now I'm a smoker and a cougher. I'm one of those coughing smokers.
It's not just the threat of cancer, but truly, that's a big one. I avoid my parabens and all, but that's so silly if I'm going to keep smoking. If you want to keep your house from burning down, it's a good idea to turn the iron off and not overload your electrical outlets and clean the lint hose on your dryer, but all of that is meaningless if you're going to shoot fireworks in your living room.
Today was a pretty typical day. I think I smoked twelve cigarettes: two on my way to work, one while I was out writing an estimate, one after lunch, two on my way home, one before I went to knitting, two on my way to knitting, one while I was at knitting, and two on my way home from knitting. I have this two-cigarette groove whenever I drove somewhere far. Twelve cigarettes sounds like my daily standard, though I don't usually keep count. I actually smoke less on the weekend because I do so much less driving. Some days I might smoke more if traffic is bad or if I smoke a lot with Lee in the evenings.
Twelve cigarettes a day shouldn't be that hard to cut back on. As I drove home tonight, I decided I should pay attention to how many I smoke each day and try to cut back. I thought about setting eight as my goal, but when I did my tally, I realized eight might be pushing it to start. Let's make this easy. Let's start with a limit of ten. That's half a pack. Let's do ten a day for a week, then maybe cut to eight next week. Or nine. Or wait two weeks. If I don't smoke all ten, there's no penalty. If I know I may want to smoke at a party or something, I can save my day's cigarettes in anticipation.
I'm very weak right now. Last year, everyone told me how strong I was, and I did my best to be really strong, even when everything I was holding on to was crumbling. The recovery isn't happening as easily or quickly or thoroughly as I'd like. It's hard to say what recovery there has been at all. All I can say for sure is that I'm saying to myself "I can't" a lot more than I'm comfortable. Things feel like they're slipping away. Some days, I feel as if at any moment, everything could fall out of my hands. And I feel like I'm set up at a point right now that any major blow would be almost unrecoverable. Last year, I don't believe I thought in terms of, "now that I'm dealing with the New Orleans disaster, I could NOT take it if something else bad happened." Something else bad DID happen, and I pressed on. Now, I really think that if something terrible happened, I would have a lot of trouble pressing on, keeping myself from falling apart.
It's not that I'm expecting something terrible to happen, but there's not always an element of forseeability to terrible events. I just feel weary.
"I can't quit smoking," I told someone tonight. What's this "can't"? I used to say "can't" in a different context: "I can't have another drink; I'm driving home" or "I can't stay out late; I'm going to church in the morning" or "I can't say that; I don't use that kind of language."
Something I can't do right now is sing my best karaoke songs without faltering on the high notes or warbling when I have to hold a note or even find a note.
I can't do this to myself. I'm taking the precious things that survived with me last year and ruining them willfully.
Where can I find strength to set myself straight? To break my bad habits? I know I have it in me to do difficult things. I learned all that crazy car shit, and that seemed very near impossible. I made that dealership give me back my thousand bucks, and they certainly didn't want to. I lost 35 pounds and fit myself back into that red dress I was sure would never find its way off the hanger again. I watched my own mother die.
Some things you do because you want to, and some things you do because you have to. I enjoy smoking cigarettes, so in that way, I do it because I want to. But when I had my big freak-out in August and started again, that was not driven by desire; that was a frightening, out-of-control sort of need. Do I want to make decisions in my life that are driven by that sort of thing?
I want to be able to sing. I want to be able to live as long as possible. I want to buy a new car that smells nice for a long time. I want to walk down the aisle of cubicles and not wonder if everyone can smell me. I want to be able to cough without being convinced everyone is thinking in that moment, "smoker!"
But I also want not to be motivated by what I'm sure other people think of me.
Lots to think about.
It's not just the threat of cancer, but truly, that's a big one. I avoid my parabens and all, but that's so silly if I'm going to keep smoking. If you want to keep your house from burning down, it's a good idea to turn the iron off and not overload your electrical outlets and clean the lint hose on your dryer, but all of that is meaningless if you're going to shoot fireworks in your living room.
Today was a pretty typical day. I think I smoked twelve cigarettes: two on my way to work, one while I was out writing an estimate, one after lunch, two on my way home, one before I went to knitting, two on my way to knitting, one while I was at knitting, and two on my way home from knitting. I have this two-cigarette groove whenever I drove somewhere far. Twelve cigarettes sounds like my daily standard, though I don't usually keep count. I actually smoke less on the weekend because I do so much less driving. Some days I might smoke more if traffic is bad or if I smoke a lot with Lee in the evenings.
Twelve cigarettes a day shouldn't be that hard to cut back on. As I drove home tonight, I decided I should pay attention to how many I smoke each day and try to cut back. I thought about setting eight as my goal, but when I did my tally, I realized eight might be pushing it to start. Let's make this easy. Let's start with a limit of ten. That's half a pack. Let's do ten a day for a week, then maybe cut to eight next week. Or nine. Or wait two weeks. If I don't smoke all ten, there's no penalty. If I know I may want to smoke at a party or something, I can save my day's cigarettes in anticipation.
I'm very weak right now. Last year, everyone told me how strong I was, and I did my best to be really strong, even when everything I was holding on to was crumbling. The recovery isn't happening as easily or quickly or thoroughly as I'd like. It's hard to say what recovery there has been at all. All I can say for sure is that I'm saying to myself "I can't" a lot more than I'm comfortable. Things feel like they're slipping away. Some days, I feel as if at any moment, everything could fall out of my hands. And I feel like I'm set up at a point right now that any major blow would be almost unrecoverable. Last year, I don't believe I thought in terms of, "now that I'm dealing with the New Orleans disaster, I could NOT take it if something else bad happened." Something else bad DID happen, and I pressed on. Now, I really think that if something terrible happened, I would have a lot of trouble pressing on, keeping myself from falling apart.
It's not that I'm expecting something terrible to happen, but there's not always an element of forseeability to terrible events. I just feel weary.
"I can't quit smoking," I told someone tonight. What's this "can't"? I used to say "can't" in a different context: "I can't have another drink; I'm driving home" or "I can't stay out late; I'm going to church in the morning" or "I can't say that; I don't use that kind of language."
Something I can't do right now is sing my best karaoke songs without faltering on the high notes or warbling when I have to hold a note or even find a note.
I can't do this to myself. I'm taking the precious things that survived with me last year and ruining them willfully.
Where can I find strength to set myself straight? To break my bad habits? I know I have it in me to do difficult things. I learned all that crazy car shit, and that seemed very near impossible. I made that dealership give me back my thousand bucks, and they certainly didn't want to. I lost 35 pounds and fit myself back into that red dress I was sure would never find its way off the hanger again. I watched my own mother die.
Some things you do because you want to, and some things you do because you have to. I enjoy smoking cigarettes, so in that way, I do it because I want to. But when I had my big freak-out in August and started again, that was not driven by desire; that was a frightening, out-of-control sort of need. Do I want to make decisions in my life that are driven by that sort of thing?
I want to be able to sing. I want to be able to live as long as possible. I want to buy a new car that smells nice for a long time. I want to walk down the aisle of cubicles and not wonder if everyone can smell me. I want to be able to cough without being convinced everyone is thinking in that moment, "smoker!"
But I also want not to be motivated by what I'm sure other people think of me.
Lots to think about.