Dear smoking-aga,
It's been what, four years straight of smoking? Cigarettes, black and milds, vape pens. It was easy to stop vaping because of how they made you cough and because of the terribly sweet flavors (yuck!). Quitting cigarettes was really hard, but you did it. Black and milds are hanging on by a thread but still hanging, nonetheless. I suppose that after being three years smoke free, I picked up the habit again right after putting on a variety of different masks. A masking of thoughts, a masking of emotions, a masking of my truest, healthiest form. I didn't want to address the hurt, the brokenness, the trauma, the betrayal, the abandonment, the abuse, the loneliness, the voids. It was easier to just layer up on the masks... until it wasn't anymore. From the end of last year up until this very moment, life has been about taking off the masks, peeling back the unpleasant and uncomfortable layers, and that H-word we all tend to run from...Healing. To separate myself from the abusive mess I was in and accept, through clenched teeth, that I was better off without certain someones, was step one. Turning back to Jesus Christ and letting Him become me, was step two. A painful yet surprisingly freeing divorce taking place smack-dab in the midst of mental and emotional uncovering, learning, and healing is step three. Smoking-aga, you convinced me that I "needed" tobacco. Of all these layers, of all these masks, couldn't I keep just one? You tricked me into a shortened life-span. I'm still peeling back the layers; still learning; still healing. But now, smoking aga, you are exposed. The masks are off. I'm packing them up now; I actually bought the boxes and packing tape this time. No "return to sender" either; there won't be a reply address. I feel naked, but isn't that's how we all began anyway? A blank canvas except for God's engraving on the package. I'm ready to be free, to be healed, to be healthy, to live the best, longest life intended for me, to have more days and more nights with her, with them, with me. I want to read to the end of the story. I want to make it to the end credits. Part one is over. Goodbye, smoking aga. Goodbye tobacco. Now loading, aga24-ongoing.
