I have lost the will to quit on Day 3 more often than any other.
I am sick, yet I am craving a cigarette.
I'm entering this blog entry to keep myself from smoking and as a way of forcing past the craving with constructive activity.
It's a warm, lazy Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. It's one of those unusual summer days where the sun is shining and it actually feels the way California is "supposed" to. No clueless visitors are huddled desperately in lines for sweaters and jackets today. Instead, the doughy marshmallow Michelin man tourists are gaping at skinny and pale.as.a.dead.underbelly.of.a.fish hipsters in tight jeans from the safety of double decker buses careening around Market street.
I am a recently bronzed Mediterranean goddess hidden beneath black tights, black oversized Ray-Bans, and am convinced that it is my snarling, furious, nicotine-deprived city attitude that keeps the Pacific fog away today. The city can only handle one ponderous, roiling maelstrom at a time, and mine ain't leaving anytime soon. I weave expertly through the crowds (walk left; stand right; wtf is wrong with you, yes you, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, haven't you seen a skyscraper before?) with a blaring ipod, a precipitously tilted open cup of scalding black coffee that I am ready to toss with the slightest provocation as part of my pedestrian urban armor, and the always-impatient clip of my shoes.
Such was my morning. I will be impatient with everyone today. I have locked myself away from the rest of humanity for their own safety and protection. Quarantined now in my room and have taken on the monumental task of organizing my files. It is a lengthy activity, and one that I would have previously broken up with cigarette breaks. Not today. I hope I can lose myself in past essays and drawings from high school and old tax returns as I decide what to shred, what to keep, and to laugh at my old silly self and wonder at how much I have grown.
It might remind me of how far I've come, and reinforce the desire to quit. It might remind me of who I was, and who I am, and increase nostalgia and thereby cravings. Either way, it's a good, easy activity for a sick Saturday afternoon and one that I have put off for far too long. My room will be cleaner and that will bring me much joy this summer. A place for everything and everything in its place.
There is a lump in my throat and a pressure in my chest. I feel as though I might explode at any moment, or that I am slowly and painfully drowning. It is not fresh air that my body yearns for like a sunflower desperately stretching to chase the sun. My whole nervous system is tuned to nicotine, is waiting to smoke, is knotting itself together with my sanity and reason into one mournful wail.why.wait.must.now.please.no that I will not allow myself to satisfy.
I want to cry and scream and shout and pound my chest. I want to run as hard as I can until I can't run anymore. Anything to make this pain go away.
Anything but the one thing that could take it away.
Armed with Broken Bells blaring out of my battered broken desk speakers, an already fanatically chewed piece of V6 gum, and a stackful of papers, I am ready to face the ugly.
Not the papers.
Being left alone all day to indulge my deepest darkest cravings without distraction. Willing myself to focus on the task at hand rather than escaping to chain smoke in Dolores park and read Chekhov like the rest of the disaffected urban youth.
That's just it, though.
I've hit the nail on the head.
I am not a youth. I am an adult. Gone are the days of carefree smoking. The future is now. The time to quit was long ago.
I'm too old for this hogwash.
Still, the siren song of youthful summertime tugs deep at my soul.
Today will not be easy.
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