I'm 40 years old. With the exception of 4 years between 2006 and 2010, I have smoked since I was 12. And today I've decided I'm sick of it.
I've actually been mulling it over for a while. Between COVID, the diagnoses of several friends with varying smoking-related cancer in the last year, wanting to be a good example for my children, and just being tired of the way smoking makes me feel, it's been on my mind for several months. But I always had an excuse to put it off.
First, it was my job. I was a newspaper editor and the newsroom is a stressful place and the only way to get away was to go out back and smoke. Well, I quit that job, but then it was that I didn't have the tools/resources I needed to get started. Or, I said, the last time I quit "successfully" was when my son was born and I didn't have time to even think about smoking, I was invested 100% in his care, and then, two years later, his sister's. I needed something that would take up that much of my attention, I argued to myself.
Except that now I know that was a choice on my part -- I wanted to be a good, attentive mother, so I chose not to smoke. And I can choose that again. I can invest all of the energy I give to cigarettes into my garden and my chickens, into hiking and exploring, into fixing up my century-old house, into community projects that matter to me -- into so many things that are much better and healthier for my body, mind and spirit than cigarettes ever could be.
I'm not under any delusion that it will be easy. I'm actually terrified. I did this before, and it lasted 4 years -- and then I found myself at the rocky, bitter end of a marriage, with children who needed me less and friends who, also going through similar struggles, began smoking again themselves, making it easier for me to justify doing the same. I'm afraid of failure, and I don't want to be successful for a few years and undo all my hard work.
But more than being afraid of failure, I'm afraid of cancer. I'm afraid of missing my kids' graduations or the births of my future grandbabies. I'm afraid I won't be there for the moments they need me. I'm afraid of losing my voice.
And I'm tired. Literally, smoking makes me tired. I'll tell myself, "I'll have this cigarette and then go sweep the floors," and instead, I'll have a cigarette and just sit for a while. It saps me of my energy and motivation.
Last night was the last straw. I smoked nearly a full pack in 7 hours. I'm normally a quarter- to half-a-pack-a-day smoker, but I was socializing with friends, outdoors, with beer, after a rough day of trying to save and ultimately losing an egg bound hen. Four triggers all right there at once. And I feel like crap, less because of the beer, and more because I smoked so dang much.
It's not working for me anymore. It's time to do something different. I'm ready to choose health again.
My quit date is August 6.
