smokin hot!

I was a junior in high school.  My boyfriend had just broken up with me and I wanted to make a great change in my life.  I thought maybe I was too much a "goody-two-shoes" and wanted to be more of a bad girl.  So I stole one of Mom's cigarettes--a filterless Pall Mall no less--and smoked it!  That'll show him I'm a bad girl!  No coughing.  No queazy stomach.  I was a natural.

And talk about a Bad Girl!  These ciggies were FILTERLESS!  I became good at tamping down the cig and spitting off that little bit of tobacco that wanted to be on my lips.  Oh yeah I was a. Bad. Girl.

I switched to filtered Kools when Mom did.  At 16, my choices of what I smoked pretty much depended on stealing my mother's brand. *singing* You're not smokin cool enough 'til you come up to Kool!

By a year later, I was buying my own.  Oh, still hiding them from my parents, but buying my own.  Marlboros were the youth brand of choice.  We still tamped them down tight but that was just to look cool.And that flip-top!  Very cool.

And talk about being cool, I smoked clove cigarettes when in college.  I felt so college-studentish. The scent of cloves alone was cool, like coffee shops were cool and poetry readings. I stopped smoking cloved cigarettes when I couldn't breathe well and was coughing up thick clovish phlegm.

The best part of smoking was the friends you can make with all those other smokers.  When I first started college, professors would actually smoke in the classroom.  Then the college moved smoking to the halls, to the out-of-doors, to eventually no smoking on campus.  I was teaching college when we hardy smokers would stand outside the building and talk about the cold winter air.  Then we became friends.  Then we hung out together when we weren't smoking.  Got to be great friends with some of my students that way.

I smoked for about 35 years and was up to about three packs of smokes a day.  Finding the Internet increased my smoking to three packs because I would sit in front of the computer screen for hours and hours and hours, smoking while chatting online.  I had once postponed a cigarette for about three months but was a pretty consistent smoker over those 35 years.  I liked smoking.  I liked the camaraderie that smoking brought.  And it was still, you know...cool, in my head anyway.

And then I just quit. Cold turkey. Quit. Why? No reason except it was time. Tough thing, quitting.  At first I would light a match, blow it out, and inhale the smoke HA!  I would say out loud, "I really want a smoke!" and move on.  I would say it because I just had to get that OUT instead of allowing it to fester and explode. I became that person at work who never left her office unless she had a class, a meeting or needed to get a people intake. I usually ate lunch at my desk. I gained weight, got into the Altoid thing--curiously strong mints were a nice substitute--and cut my hair.  Never have been sure why women cut their hair when they are going through stuff, but we do. Break up? Cut your hair. Quit smoking? Cut your hair.

I forgot how to argue. Previously, I was a very good person in an argument.  Smoking allowed me to think through what I was going to say.  Quit and every thought that ran through my head came out my mouth. There was no stopping that flow. At one point, my fairly new husband said, "I just want my wife back!"  Well, that never actually happened...but a new version of the same wife emerged. I'm okay now...usually.
 
I've been a former-smoker for 19 years now. I still miss the smell of fresh smoke. I miss the social aspect of chattering with smokers. Interestingly, when e-cigarettes came out, I wanted to try them...wasn't like really smoking, right? Still do if I think about them, even with all the horrible things happening to people who do use them...but glad I never did, never will.

I'm not quite as cool as I was back then, but cool enough.
And so it goes.
peace~~~