6:25 a.m. - Friday, Jul. 05, 2002
Ms Leslie kisses a toxic friend goodbye
It�s probably too soon to say this, but I think I�m going to beat the smoking thing. Something�s different. It�s not as hard this time around. Maybe I finally got tired of smoking and all it entails. All the piles and piles of cigarette butts I�ve dumped in the garbage� or thrown out the window of the car. I�ll bet they would fill a forty foot semi trailer. The coughing, the skin damage, the smell of it on my clothes, hair and in my very skin�. And though I�m craving a smoke right this very minute, I�m realizing that the craving has been my constant companion for all these years. The moment I�ve always wanted a cigarette the most is the moment I�ve just finished smoking one.

When I was young, it was fun� and useful.. to smoke. Smoking was accepted everywhere. Ashtrays were set out in every lobby and waiting room in America. I remember being truly shocked to discover that there were people who were allergic or irritated at the exposure to cigarette smoke. Still, I though it was unreasonable for them to ask that I not be allowed to smoke after a meal in my favorite restaurant. It was, at one time, an American right to smoke when, where, and as we pleased. It was useful too. I can�t begin to tell how much comfort a smoke has brought. Yeah� I know, I know� it was temporary comfort, and came at a terrible price, but it was comfort, and sometimes it was all I could get. Like a mini-vacation. Sometimes, just watching a cigarette burn down; the smoke curling away in the hot, humid air, is enough to take you away for a minute from a place you�d be willing to die to escape. Or the time it takes to smoke one is as much time as you can allow yourself to feel a loss and get over it� or to calm a jangling and shaking body, soothing the fear that comes only after mortal danger has been survived. Small, small comforts� and never enough, but comfort nonetheless. I think I�ve smoked all these years for two basic reasons. First, because it became an automatic coping mechanism that was somewhat useful even after I survived Vietnam. And second because I�ve been trying to find some kind of acceptance and closure to what happened to me there, and in the ensuing years. In a horribly twisted way, my cigarettes have been a connection to those days long ago. Aside from the junk that�s gone around and around in my mind, they�re the only real connection I have left, like some sort of psychic souvenir from the twilight zone. All of my clothing was cut away and discarded when I was shot. My equipment gathered up and sent somewhere to be re-issued or destroyed. I owned a duffel bag of clothing and personal items. It was stored somewhere, at some army warehouse somewhere� never to be seen again. Everything I brought home from Vietnam, I brought home in my mind�. And the only physical connection I ever had to any of it was to be found in the sight, smell, flavor and feeling of a filter cigarette.

Oh I know, I�m talking crazy, like I�m not ready to give up my old friend smoking. But that�s the point�. I think I finally am. Smoking has been a friend; a toxic friend. It�s like the friend that talks you into shoplifting at the music store and then professes ignorance when the security guy shakes a tape from your jacket, or that friend who steals your boyfriend behind your back. I�m going to miss a lot about smoking cigarettes, but I�m finding that it�s a friendship I can live without. There are other ways; ways that don�t hurt as much, and others that do hurt for a time, perhaps, but that can be used to deal with life more effectively than constant smoking. It�s a friend that I hate to cut loose. I almost feel guilty. But I�m not getting what I used to from our relationship. The toxic�s gotten too big while the friendship�s gotten too small. It�s not worth the pain any more.

Yesterday was an inside day. There were thunderstorms for part of the day, and the rest of the day, I just didn�t feel like going anywhere. Let the great crowd enjoy their day off from work. They clog the roads and buy out the stores on days like this. They have limited time to enjoy life outside of work or school. I have every day of the rest of my life if I�ll use it. I can step aside for them on a holiday. So I stalked around the apartment all day. My craving for nicotine is translated to a craving for food. I�ve nothing in the house now, except for rice, oatmeal, two frozen Lean Cuisines, a couple pieces of frozen fish and a big bag of shrimp from Kim and Sandy and a whole chicken that I can�t thaw because I don�t want to eat the whole thing. All that, and then the usual suspects like a bag of sugar, flour, a couple cans of bamboo shoots and a can of peas� stuff like that. There�s nothing here that would make a snack. No bread, no milk, crackers, cookies, nuts, raisins, chips, no nuthin�. So, after my exercises and shower, I find myself pacing around, not wanting to prepare food and not finding anything that�s ready to eat. It�s not so bad at the beginning of the day but by nighttime, I�m so hungry I finally cave in and find myself eating weird stuff, like peas from the can or peanut butter from a spoon or dill pickles in mustard. If I could, I�d eat oatmeal with fresh salsa for breakfast and rice for every other meal. I�ve learned how to make passable sushi. But I�m seeing oatmeal and rice as being too fattening. I�m seeing all foods as too fattening. I�m feeling guilty whenever I eat anything other than tomatoes, cabbage, unsweetened iced tea or diet coke, or other selected fresh vegetables. I�m feeling guilty, but eating other things anyway because I can�t stop myself. When I do break down and eat, then I can�t stop. I end up eating everything I�ve made and then feeling stuffed, fat and useless for not being able to control my hunger. It�s worse while I get off the smokes. I think it�ll get better in the next few days.

So.. once again, it�s all about me. Me and my obsessions. Me and my emotions. Me and my shadow. But, I�ve talked about me long enough. Why don�t you talk about me for awhile?

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