I might be free.
I sat in a smoky pub tonight and never lit a cigarette. I didn't even want one. Was I thinking about cigarettes? Of course I was. Smoke swam around me in great gusts and fluid wisps. Further down the bar, a bearded man sat down and immediately pulled a tattered paperback from one coat pocket and a pack of Dunhill's from the other, slapping both down on the counter with firm resolve. A nervous man at the next table held his rollies like joints, lighting a fresh one every fifteen minutes like clockwork. Cigarettes were inescapable and I thought about them constantly, but I didn't smoke. Instead, I marveled over the fact that I was actually willing myself to smoke and still didn't bother.
A tiny voice in my head pestered, "Smoke one. You should smoke. You always smoke. You like it! Why aren't you smoking?" The normally seductive voice had lost its charm. I paid it no mind and it faded back, hungry and unwanted. I glanced around at all of the cigarettes burning casually in outstretched hands as if I were watching a movie set in a pub, a free-form documentary about nicotine addiction. A great chasm spread between me and them, in stark opposition to the camaraderie I normally enjoyed every time I met a fellow smoker. Mystified, I settled into the unfamiliar vibe and let it move through me at its own pace. Sure, I commented on it to my companion from time to time. I felt uncomfortably comfortable, as if I were visiting a childhood home I didn't remember.
What really struck me, though, was not that I'd suddenly quit smoking, but that I felt no desire to shout it from the rooftops. I didn't want to rush home and tell everyone I know, the way I had when this New Year's morning found me in an agitated state of scheduled cold turkey. The way I always do when I desperately need someone else to pat me on the head and tell me I'm doing the right thing. When I'm too afraid to face the solution on my own.
A few years ago, I fell in love with an amazing man who felt like my home, and like my future. When I finally told one of my closest friends, a man who had stood firmly beside me through the frequent sexual entanglements that rode the coattails of my divorce, he had one thing to say to me. It was neither a judgment nor an approval; it was simply an observation. This wise man said to me, "It sounds like the real thing." Confused, I asked him how he could possibly have come to that conclusion, and he answered, "Because if it wasn't, you would have told me about it a long time ago."
And that's the crux of it. That's what blew me out of the water tonight - a lesson I learned again tonight. Inexplicably quit smoking after 20 years? Pshaw. Whatever. Child's play. I pulled a Bic out of my pocket, and wrote "VALIDATION" on my left palm.
I didn't call or text message anybody. I didn't write the celebratory e-mail in my head. I just sat there alone, embracing my non-smokerness as it curled around my belly like a warm blanket. The new me didn't belong to anyone else, and it didn't need anyone else. It wasn't nervous or anxious, or doubting its validity in any way. It knew that it belonged exactly where it was.
I might smoke tomorrow or maybe Friday, but I'll quit before the month is out. You'll find out about it at some point, maybe through observation, random conversation or one of our mutual friends, and I hope you'll be supportive. That's your call. The real star of my movie, though, is me.
I sat in a smoky pub tonight and never lit a cigarette. I didn't even want one. Was I thinking about cigarettes? Of course I was. Smoke swam around me in great gusts and fluid wisps. Further down the bar, a bearded man sat down and immediately pulled a tattered paperback from one coat pocket and a pack of Dunhill's from the other, slapping both down on the counter with firm resolve. A nervous man at the next table held his rollies like joints, lighting a fresh one every fifteen minutes like clockwork. Cigarettes were inescapable and I thought about them constantly, but I didn't smoke. Instead, I marveled over the fact that I was actually willing myself to smoke and still didn't bother.
A tiny voice in my head pestered, "Smoke one. You should smoke. You always smoke. You like it! Why aren't you smoking?" The normally seductive voice had lost its charm. I paid it no mind and it faded back, hungry and unwanted. I glanced around at all of the cigarettes burning casually in outstretched hands as if I were watching a movie set in a pub, a free-form documentary about nicotine addiction. A great chasm spread between me and them, in stark opposition to the camaraderie I normally enjoyed every time I met a fellow smoker. Mystified, I settled into the unfamiliar vibe and let it move through me at its own pace. Sure, I commented on it to my companion from time to time. I felt uncomfortably comfortable, as if I were visiting a childhood home I didn't remember.
What really struck me, though, was not that I'd suddenly quit smoking, but that I felt no desire to shout it from the rooftops. I didn't want to rush home and tell everyone I know, the way I had when this New Year's morning found me in an agitated state of scheduled cold turkey. The way I always do when I desperately need someone else to pat me on the head and tell me I'm doing the right thing. When I'm too afraid to face the solution on my own.
A few years ago, I fell in love with an amazing man who felt like my home, and like my future. When I finally told one of my closest friends, a man who had stood firmly beside me through the frequent sexual entanglements that rode the coattails of my divorce, he had one thing to say to me. It was neither a judgment nor an approval; it was simply an observation. This wise man said to me, "It sounds like the real thing." Confused, I asked him how he could possibly have come to that conclusion, and he answered, "Because if it wasn't, you would have told me about it a long time ago."
And that's the crux of it. That's what blew me out of the water tonight - a lesson I learned again tonight. Inexplicably quit smoking after 20 years? Pshaw. Whatever. Child's play. I pulled a Bic out of my pocket, and wrote "VALIDATION" on my left palm.
I didn't call or text message anybody. I didn't write the celebratory e-mail in my head. I just sat there alone, embracing my non-smokerness as it curled around my belly like a warm blanket. The new me didn't belong to anyone else, and it didn't need anyone else. It wasn't nervous or anxious, or doubting its validity in any way. It knew that it belonged exactly where it was.
I might smoke tomorrow or maybe Friday, but I'll quit before the month is out. You'll find out about it at some point, maybe through observation, random conversation or one of our mutual friends, and I hope you'll be supportive. That's your call. The real star of my movie, though, is me.
