So anyway, I figure now is as good a time as any to write about why I’m doing this in the first place. Because the truth of the matter is that I actually love smoking. I also hate it, and at this point the hate actually outweighs the love, but the love is still there and it’s still rather powerful.

Like many people, I started smoking when I was a teenager. My mom smoked when I was a kid, and I used to beg and beg her to quit because I didn’t want her to die (she did quit, and likes to remind me sometimes about how anti-smoking I was when I was a kid and isn’t it ironic?). Yet I always had this fascination with cigarettes. It was a secret fascination, one I’d never admit to anyone, because smoking is so gross oh my god, but there was this part of me that always kind of wondered what the fuss was about. So one night when I was in high school I was with some friends and nearly all of them smoked, and I looked over at one of my friends and didn’t say anything but I guess it was written on my face, because he just handed me his cigarette. People tell stories about the first time they smoked, how they coughed or felt sick, but none of that happened to me. I took to smoking naturally, easily. It was as simple as breathing, only better. I was hooked from that very first cigarette, and though I’ve quit here & there for varying amounts of time, I’ve always gone back to it, because I always thought that smoking is so great.

It’s terrible too, and I know it. I know every single argument against smoking and over the past year I have recited those arguments to myself nearly every time I’d light up. It’s expensive, it causes cancer, it smells bad, it causes old-lady-smoker-voice, it prematurely ages the skin, blah blah blah blah blah. And to be perfectly honest, I’ve been kind of embarrassed that I do it. (Did it. Must think of it in the past tense.) I never used to care, and it was always just one of the things I did, but then I quit in 2005 when I got pneumonia and I started again about a month later because it was the holiday season and my job had gone all to hell and a close friend died, and it was so easy to slip back into the habit, as a way of dealing with things. One of the nice things about smoking is that it’s a tiny break, just for myself, whenever I’d have a cigarette it was just my time to relax alone for those few minutes. But I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I’d started again and I was embarrassed about it so I kept it to myself and would’nt smoke in public or around other people. Well I would, but very rarely. It actually took me a really long time to admit that I’d started smoking again because I always thought it was temporary, and I wasn’t smoking as much as I’d been smoking so it was no big deal. But finally I had to admit that I was a smoker again and this disappointed me so much.

At the beginning of 2008 I decided that my days with smoking were numbered and I started visualizing what it would mean to me to become a nonsmoker. I made lists of things I didn’t want to be part of my life anymore, and things I did want in their place. And I tried in September, but not really hard. It was a spur of the moment thing and I hadn’t really prepared myself for it, so I lasted about a day, but after that I knew I was going to have to do this for real. So I picked a date (January 1, 2009) and as it grew ever closer I smoked less and less and started thinking about all the things I hated about cigarettes so I would have all those thoughts to fall back on when the time came.

And here I am. On the fifth day of this attempt, with a minor screw-up in the middle of it all, and I feel okay. I mean, I know that this is what I want, and I’m going to succeed. It’s difficult in the middle of it, when everything in my body says “Please for the love of God smoke a cigarette right now. In fact, smoke two. Or three,” to remember why I’m doing this, why I’m even trying in the first place. But here’s why:

Out of everything — cancer, old-lady-smoker-voice, money, etc. — the main reason why I am doing this is because I don’t like feeling tied to anything, beholden to a habit. I don’t like having to work out when that next cigarette will be. I don’t want to have to schedule my days around an addiction. I don’t want to have to get dressed at night and go to the gas station to buy a pack of smokes. I want to be free of it. I want to do my own thing.

And the rest of it, that’s important stuff too. But the freedom aspect, that’s the main thing. That’s what I will hold onto even while my brain tries to trick me into thinking it will be okay to have just one more, one last time. Because the one last time always seems to turn into the next-to-last time, and it has to stop somewhere. Now is as good a time as any.

Dammit, I really need to get rid of that pack of cigarettes.

Edit: I threw them away.

The thing is that now that I have the cigarettes (they are in the door of my car because I refuse to bring them into the house) I think about them all the time. Pretty much every minute. It’s terrible. I’m going to have some chocolate. Chocolate helps.

I hate myself for buying them but I also know that beating myself up about it is counterproductive. It happened, blah blah, move on.

I took the deepest breath possible when passing them by. God, I love them.

The other cigarette I miss is the last one at night. I didn’t even know this was an issue for me, like I didn’t know I was so attached to having one last smoke before going to bed, but I guess I was, because now when I’m getting ready at night I think “Okay, and then I’ll have a cigarette and go to bed. Oh, nevermind. I guess I’ll just go to bed.” And I feel a little heartbroken.

Somehow, smoking turned all these little things in my day into tiny events. What do you do to replace that?

Chain smoking is harder than it used to be. I used to do it without a problem, but as I smoked one after another after another I felt terrible, and by the time I got to the last cigarette in the pack, I thought I might barf. But I smoked it anyway, leaning out of the window like I used to do in high school, my fingers freezing. It was 2:30 a.m., January 1. I went to bed, feeling dizzy and sick, and told myself to hang onto that feeling, that disgusting awful feeling, to remember it every time I wanted a cigarette in the future. Then I went to sleep.

I woke up this morning and my first thought was “I feel terrible.” My second thought was “I’ll feel better after a cup of coffee and a smoke.” My third thought was “Oh shit, I quit smoking.” It was a bad moment, and I felt stricken, as though I had just discovered that I was dying, so I had to stay in bed for awhile, getting used to the idea that when I did get up I would not be having a cigarette. I would not be having a cigarette then, or ever again. When I finally felt strong enough to face this reality, I got out of bed and did some stuff around the house. I had some of that nicotene gum, and I chewed a piece. I had some coffee. I watched the Rose Parade on TV. I thought about smoking every five minutes or so. I tried thinking about other things I’d stopped doing in the past, like drinking too much or calling that guy who didn’t really care about me all that much even though I was completely in love with him. How had I done it? Well, I’d just stopped, hadn’t I? Quit. Told myself no every time I wanted to say yes until I learned my new rules. And now I can go out and have a drink instead of ten. I don’t even know where that guy is anymore. (Quitting drinking was easier than quitting the guy, as it happens.) And if I could stop that behavior, I could stop this.

And really, other than the fact that I thought about smoking a lot, the physical cravings weren’t so terrible. They were there, but not unbearable. And yeah, I do have the gum (though I’m not chewing as much as the directions tell me to because I don’t want to end up addicted to that stuff next) but the physical craving isn’t so much for the nicotene itself, or I guess that’s what the gum is taking care of, but for everything else associated with the act of smoking a cigarette. I miss the feel of a ciagarette between my fingers. I miss the feel of the smoke as it fills my mouth, like a hot, dirty kiss you know is wrong, but you’ll be damned if it doesn’t leave you breathless and wanting more. I miss those things, mostly. But overall it’s not quite as terrible as I thought it would be. Though I guess it’s only been one day. We’ll see.