Week 1: Recap

Today marks the end of my first week without cigarettes, and I figure it makes sense to look back on how it went. I'm actually not going to attempt to be funny or entertaining here, so much as I'm trying to have a log of how this first week went and felt.

First and foremost, I've been sick all week. I know this is not coincidence, as I would catch sudden fevers and chills faster than the menopausal women around me. I'd break out into violent sweats and shiver at the same time while drinking hot coffee.

BUT, i haven't had a cigarette.

I have been an emotional wreck since the day I stopped smoking. More so than usual.
I take every single criticism said to me to heart. I've snapped on close friends, and suddenly gotten offended over long running gags that I helped come up with.

BUT, i haven't had a cigarette.

I've been impatient with everyone. I chew my gum loud and cold stare people when they talk to me. I click giant gobs of trident off my tongue and roll it around and cluck while my boss talks to me as if to say, "can you pick up the pace?"

BUT, i haven't had a cigarette.

And, I haven't been smart about this at all. I read up on "useful tips" for quitting smoking. Near the top of most the lists is, "throw out the cigarettes in your house." This time, laziness trumped ease of life (as it always does). I haven't even gotten around to cleaning the ashtray next to the computer.

After work every day I scramble past the bodega with my head down so I don't go on autopilot, pick up a carton of camel lights. Pack a pack against the back of my hand, unwrap them with my teeth, pop em open shred the tin foil, toss it all in the garbage, put it up to my lips and pull from first puff to filter in one slow unceasing breath.

I've fetishized it at this point. Everyone I see smoking, from the fingerless wonder on tv in the morning, to the waddling obese man on my way to work could be glossed up and shown to me as an ad for the joys of smoking. I watch dry mouth old buzzards of men, with yellow stained mustaches using their tongue lips and teeth to hold the cigarette in place in their mouth, and clenching their eyes as they take a drag like they're losing a piece of their soul in ever puff. It all looks wonderful to me, I can see they're happy. I can see how happy they are.

I feel like I'm running a gauntlet of temptation back to my apartment, staring at smokers and smoke shops, and walking through clouds of smoke. I close the door behind me and rinse my face, switch into pajama's then sit down at the tv, or the computer, and there they are. Half finished cigarette packs, and mostly untouched butts in the ashtray.