Today officially marks a week without smoking. That means I haven't smoked in a whopping 172.4 hours, skipped 179.6 cigarettes, saved $125.74 and regained 43 hours of my life. All in all, I'm doing okay. It seems that the worst has passed. The reason that I haven't written is that I have nothing new to report. I'm pretty cranky, as my family can attest to (sorry), but at this point it's more of a choice than a result of nicotine withdrawal.
I get asked a lot why I started smoking. I didn't grow up in a smoking household and neither of my siblings smoke. I often have been told that I don't look like a person who smokes. I don't know exactly what that means, but I think it's the over-flowing girliness and the fact that I actually still look like a 12 year old. So I've spent the week reflecting on that question and this blog post is what I've come up with.
I'm warning you now, the start of this story sounds like an after-school special. Read on at your own peril.
I was 18 and it was the summer before college. I had elected not to work, so basically I had idle hands and you know how the rest goes. Everyone was smoking that summer and I thought what the hell. I was dying to be an adult and this seemed like something adults do. So I tried it. WORST DECISION EVER. And the stupidest. No real thought even went into it. I just did it. (Cue the Law and Order dun-dun here)
I wasn't a pack a day person at this point by any means. I smoked when I was extremely stressed or when I was at a party. But then I dated a guy who smoked, tons of people at Hillsdale smoked, my course level increased and I just fell into it, head over heels.
I promised myself that I would quit before the end of college. Unfortunately during my last semester, things were really tough. I was extremely unhappy and trying to quit smoking wasn't feasible. Never mind that I had developed a horrible smoker's cough. Never mind that it was eating away the little money I had. Never mind that it drove my boyfriend crazy. Nothing would have made me stop.
So I moved to New York, still a smoker, and started a stressful job in news. Everyone in journalism smokes. so it was once again a way to fit in. My boyfriend dumped me so that problem was out of the way. But truthfully, I just didn't want to stop. It was fun, relaxing and in my mind, I could quit whenever I wanted to. Laugh out loud.
(Don't worry, I've finished my sprees so this is coming to an end)
So why now? Why in the world, would I put myself through this hell? Here's the gist of it. A lot has happened in the last few months, that has been awful. My life has twisted and flipped and changed in ways I didn't expect it to, or ask for. I even had to have my appendix out on the Fourth of July! As the bad kept piling on, and my daily cigarette count increased, I kept looking for some cosmic lesson I was suppose to learn from all of this. There had to be a reason this was all happening to me.
After a few months of navel gazing, a lot of desperate prayers and just white knuckling it, I've learned that I haven't faced my problems head on since I was 18 years old. Everything has been a bit smoked filled. When things got bad, I always had my friend Marlboro Light to lean on. Cigarettes were my confidant, my therapist, my coach, my everything. So a week ago I decided it was time to put on my big girl panties and deal with my shit, pardon my French. It was time to look at my life, look at my choices and evaluate it honestly. Smoking had to go.
It hasn't been easy or fun or particularly rewarding, but I'm still glad I did it. Would I go back and turn down my first cigarette? Definitely not. I still don't regret it. But would I pick up one now, even if things get really bad? Definitely not. Grown-up Emmaline is here to stay
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