jambalie

getting there!!

I can breathe much easier. I can work out without feeling like I will pass out. I don’t lie in bed, heart pounding in my ears, wondering when my blood pressure is going to drop back to normal. Much less unpleasantness from my lungs and sinuses in the morning. Food tastes better (although spicy stuff, which I loved, hotter the better, is now FIRE in my mouth). I have saved nearly $200 dollars since I started cutting back and then quit. I don’t wake up with that taste in my mouth anymore. My skin is already looking healthier. I don’t have to worry about not being able to smoke in restaurants or bars or movies theatres or when shopping…if I fly anywhere again, I won’t be crazy jonesing in midair. I don’t have those “It’s been too long since my last cigarette” flash mood swings. I don’t have to hide it from my dad anymore and my husband doesn’t have to hide it from his mom. I don’t have to think “I really need to quit smoking again” anymore. I don’t have to listen to my sister asking when I’m going to quit smoking or giving me statistics and advising me of every negative thing anyone has ever remotely associated with smoking, anymore. Once I get all the white clothes and various surfaces cleaned, they will no longer get that sticky yellow build-up. I don’t have to empty ashtrays anymore. When I’m at my mom’s (or in-law’s) and it’s 4° outside, I don’t have to stand on the porch, freezing my ass off, to get some stupid fix. I no longer have to worry in a car that ashes are going to blow back into the car and onto me – or catch anything on fire. I don’t have to smell that horrible stench because my husband didn’t get his butt put out all the way and the filter is on fire. My husband and I have a feeling of accomplishment to share and a new experience to talk about everyday as it evolves. No more worry about going to the store b/c I’m almost out of smokes, no more finding inventive ways to light up when my lighter goes dead and I don’t have another, no more packing (or hacking), no more fallen cherries, or sticking a cigbutt in my back pocket because there’s no trashcan and I wasn’t one of those “toss it anywhere” smokers, no more being bitchy in the morning before I’ve had my smoke, no more fighting my lighter when it’s windy, or trying to keep the smoke out of the faces of others, no more listening to my husband’s wheeze/cough routine at night, no more having to say the mouthful “carton/pack of marlboro light menthol’s, please” (when I still smoke 100’s it was even worse), no more having to go with the grocery store clerk because they NEVER got the right kind if I didn’t…no more.

This one is still in progress, but since I just quit smoking and my main characters were all smokers, there are some rewrites to be done…Because if I don’t get to smoke, they don’t get to smoke. mutter-Fictional addicts…/-mutter