Enough with the quiting already.

I’m not saying that I want to “quit”. That’s far too final. Claiming to “quit” something when deep in your colon of colons you KNOW that isn’t the honest case, is akin to steeling. Steeling nerve, if nothing else.

So I’m stopping for a bit. For a spell. Some time.

I haven’t had a smoke since June 20th. Maybe the 21st. I forget.

Damn, that totally takes the steam out of it, doesn’t it? Like a wedding anniversary where they’re both like “well, let’s just go to The Radisson for a weekend the first week of November, because I remember it was sort-of cold when we got married, brisk and breezy, but the leaves were still pretty much on the trees. Pretty much.”

Almost, or exactly a month to the day.

It happened rather easily, to be quite honest. I simply didn’t want a smoke for two whole days, and on the third day I HAD TO HAVE ONE. A rather violent desire to stick a burning fag of dried tobacky into my maw. It was beyond compulsive. It was obligatory and I honestly didn’t feel like I would enjoy the smoke as much as I NEEDED it.

And that’s where the desire to smoke is now lost on me. Now that I realize the form of my addiction, which is more humorous than anything else, it pisses me off. Irony lives there somewhere, but I don’t care to dig for it.

It pisses me off because not but a month and a week ago, I smoked for the pure pleasure of it. I FELT like those magazine ads for Newports LOOK. Alive with goddamn pleasure. I smoked because it tasted good, and that flavor happily complimented the sweet tints of my coffee, beer, or absinthe. Because I felt it benefited my soul to partake. Just like one might periodically enjoy a truffle, hang gliding, or rough ass-play. I considered myself a dabbler, rather than a mechanical addict to the thing.

And for that, dear lungs, I apologize.

However, I would like to make it clear that I am not QUITING. Far from it. My intentions are to wait it out. I will hold off on smoking until such time as I feel I will be capable of having a smoke without NEEDING another. Because I want to ENJOY smoking again. I want it to compliment my morning coffee. My evening nightcap. My long-distance car ride.

It might be years before I have that confidence though. Maybe decades. In fact, I may never, ever-ever-ever feel that I can honestly handle a cig without desperately demanding another. And if that’s the case, then I’ll wait all the way to my grave. So be it.

I’m no prisoner, except to myself. I willingly jump for no entity outside of my own whim (many times at my own folly). And I just can’t stomach the idea of some inanimate object bullying me around like that. Not when we used to be so affectionately intimate.

Tobacco and I have been through much together. Many hard times. Good times. And hopefully we’ll meet again someday under better circumstances. Until then, well, fuck it.

[Emotional mania has been the raving flagship of my life-fleet for the past month. And that’s awesome.]