fountainhead

cross my mind - smoking - part 3

part 3

tuesday evening at home i really, really felt like having a smoke for the very first time. i thought to myself that i could have it now, nobody would ever know because nobody new that i’d stopped, after all. even at work no one noticed (i have my own office). and i thought okay, let me just wait a while longer before i do and have some more carrot sticks. that was the nearest i ever came to giving up stopping. but i did not smoke that evening. after about two weeks i gave away my cigarettes, a packet at a time. much, much later i gave my beautiful zippos to my brother who is a collector, saying that if i ever started smoking again, i want them back, thanks (one of my reasons for never attempting to stop, besides not wanting to anyway, was because i wouldn’t be able to use my pretty collectors’ lighters anymore!). the carrot sticks, toothpicks to just play with in my mouth and dried prunes helped tremendously, in my opinion. i was very wise to invest in those.

about a year after quitting, i had a huge occasion of a friend coming to visit. i don’t want to go into the dynamic of that visit, but i decided i was going to smoke that one evening only and i did and carried on not smoking the very next day. it was no more difficult than that first monday i quit. but i will not do something like that again, it’s not worth the pleasure, i think, but i’m not sure why… i also cannot say that i have noticed, having stopped now for nearly three years, that my taste is better or that i can suddenly run long distances without being breathless. in fact, suddenly i have sinus problems, which was never an issue before in my whole life, although it has cleared up a lot in the mean time. what i can say for sure is that i save more than a thousand namibian dollars a month! that is huge…and i’m pleased. i’m also one of two people out of a hundred who have been successful in my attempt, i’m told by those who know. i like that thought.

i’m very fortunate. i have no trouble partying and not smoking. and i never, ever crave a smoke. i sometimes do find it difficult with smokers in my face, but i try to go elsewhere and not fuss (because of the sinus it can be irritating. i could never stand smoke in my face anyway, even before i stopped smoking, not even my own). i can honestly say that stopping has been really, really easy for me. i cannot give anyone advice; i don’t know what i did right. i don’t know if i’ve stopped smoking for ever. i’m not so full of myself that i will swear i’ll never smoke again. people have stopped for long whiles and after ten years suddenly started again. (i must admit that i find the reason for that difficult to fathom.) at one point i thought i would have liked to be able to give motivational speeches – not seriously, but still - about not smoking, especially to teenagers and school goers. but what would i say? i was never affected by peer pressure so i find it hard to imagine that that could be a reason to start smoking. i never thought it was cool myself, so i cannot imagine teenagers thinking that such a useless thing as smoking, is cool. i was a rebel too, but smoking to show rebellion is not clever at all as far as i’m concerned and i cannot understand people doing it for that reason. (after all, who are u spiting and harming?) and if someone did it because they enjoyed it, how can i talk against that, as i think that is the only reason i can see why anyone should waste their money? so no motivational speeches from me.

i had a friend who died of lung cancer after he had stopped smoking (as easily as myself, incidentally, but six or so years before i quit) for four years before he was diagnosed. he lived for four more years after that. (there are those who believe when one stops smoking after many years, cancer is what you will get, for sure.) i hope that is not true. he bled to death from a burst aorta; his hospital room was covered in blood when they found him. he used to say one should never start. bottom line. do not start smoking. i suspect he was right. it is simply better never to start.

but i want to say this: if nothing mattered, if it made no difference at all, if it was all the same to anyone and myself, i would be a smoker. i love smoking. i understand why people do not want to give it up. but they cannot know this when they start. so maybe it is wisest to just not start.

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