Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Cigarettes And I Broke Up

(picture courtesy of cigarettes digest.com, and yes, there is such a thing)

When I realized that my longest and most successful relationship has been the one I've had with smoking, I had a long talk with myself. Well, argument really.

Cigarettes have been paramount to my life since I first stole one out of my Aunt's car at the age of 16. I once had a boyfriend tell me that he couldn't be "with someone who claimed that cigarettes were her first love." So I dumped him. Cigarettes were my first love. Period. And I knew they were going to be there for me long after he would. I used to feel sexy and beautiful (like the girl pictured above) and most importantly NOT hungry, every time I lit one.

However, at this point in my life, I have become to realize that I am actually closer to looking like this:

than anything else. Notice her fashionable earrings, and matching hat and scarf? Yeah I'm pretty sure the ghost of cigarettes future put this picture on the internet to show me my fate. I mean, how am I going to run around giving fashion advice when my fingers are about to turn yellow?

So now, I am forced to have long calming talks with myself about things; i.e. am I really hungry or do I just want to smoke? is 1:30 a.m. a good time to pace around the house and eat pretzels instead of smoking? am I really mad that the dog chewed a Q-tip or am I just pissed because I'm not smoking? The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is always the same.

What I found is that talking things out in a relationship isn't as bad as I thought...well, at least in the relationship I have with myself. (I have yet to master it in any other relationship, but hey, baby steps) I also realized that after years of kidding myself about not "really being addicted" to smoking, I was wildly, unequivocally, addicted.

I also used to think that a memoir entitled "coffee and nicotine" was appropriate when I finally sit down to write one, however, I'm going to have to rethink that.

At least I will have some more time and a few less wrinkles along the way.

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