I've been back from my errands for a while, had my lunch and am taking a break before the afternoon's tasks. When I was out walking I saw an empty Benson & Hedges cigarette pack lying on the ground. My thoughts went to what the person who smoked that pack was trying to buy for him/herself. I noticed how the pack design had changed in the years since I smoked that brand, and then I flashed on the fact that most of the brands I smoked in my early adulthood were really my attempts to come off as cool and sophisticated when I was anything but. Parliaments, Players (American and British), Shermans (they were awful tasting, but oh so hip), Benson & Hedges, Virginia Slims. I had to shake my head at that past self's attempts to come off as a sophisticated person. I wanted the lifestyle that the ads promised, and as I was growing up, all the cool people smoked. Heck, everybody smoked. I just made the mistake of thinking that a tube of paper stuffed with leaves was essential to the image, that the image was essential. Heaven forbid I be perceived as a goody-two-shoes. I had to go through some serious storms to figure out I needed substance rather than form. A cigarette isn't much comfort when someone is sick or dying. A cigarette just won't do the trick when you're lonely, no matter how many of them you smoke. At some point you've got to find what you need inside yourself -- the real stuff, not what the popular cultrue pushes. Real women and men don't smoke -- that's true individualism. Funny, wanting a cigarette didn't cross my mind.
