Day 97 - To My Old Friend 'The Cigarette'

So here we are. Three months after My Big Quit. A few drags here and there that I snuck in a drunken stupor--I've nearly forgotten them. Better yet, I've forgiven them. 

Today is a bit like a memorial service. A memoir. A good-bye.

Dear Cig,

I've left you so many times over the last few years. Every time, I think this is it I'm done. But I always knew, if I was low and needy, you'd be there. I always tucked you away in this special place in my mind. Loving you in secret.

You are my life noir. My dirty little playmate. You make me feel delicious, dark, and carefree.

Each time I take you back I welcome you. It's right back where we left off. We hang out on the back patio together. We pour a glass of thick red wine. We look at the stars. We breathe each other in deeply, thinking, O I've missed you...

But as days turn to weeks, I start to feel your weight on me. I'm remembering why we left each other. Why this wasn't a good idea. Your old familar hug starts to feel like a noose. 

You're so needy the way you cling to me. You demand that I stop at the nearest dingy gas station to pick you up at 7 dollars a pop. I don't have the money to spend on you, to pay the fees you incur. I start to realize you never really made me feel good anyway. You never give back. I resent you.

It's all so rocky--so love / hate. When I don't have the fire to light you, I panic. I think I'll lose my mind without you. You've always been so lovely in the mornings. 

Yet our patio stints are more frantic now. Quick pulls just to quiet my rising anxiety. We don't even sit out there anymore and watch the sky. Worse yet, my friends don't even like you. You're controlling and smelly. You're no good for me. I know I have to leave you.

I pick an arbitrary date in the future. And then I relish our last weeks together. I get nostalgic and fearful. I start to think perhaps we could make it after all...

But I know better. We're doomed. As the day approaches, a knot grows in my stomach. It flutters around, kicking my organs. You start to freak out in protest. You use your best manipulations, begging to stay, distorting the truth, trying to confuse me. I see how desperate you are.

On 'Q' day I quietly put the pillow over your face to smother you. I can hear and feel you screaming. It breaks my heart. In the next week, you never stop clawing at my throat. I'm sad and mad and angry and weepy and happy and despite my mixed bag of feelings, I know it's the right thing.  I want you to leave me alone.

It's easier and harder then I ever imagined. As the days melt into weeks and months, I've only snuck into your bedroom twice. And it's always been tinged with morning-after guilt. You mean nothing to me.

Most days I don't even remember you. I forget we ever happened. I realize how inconsequential you really were to my being. I think why didn't I leave you sooner?

But I must have you in my bones, because sometimes I walk by a cafe and there you are on the patio. You look bohemian and vibrant. You smell so good. I inhale deeply. I think, o my you're divine. Then I shake my head.

I remind myself to look behind your smoke screen. You look so pretty, but your insides are dusty ash. I crave the pink heart of life without you. My mind is cloudless. I am free to feel what I really feel. Without you, everything is brighter. The electric pulse of the city. The cool smell of the ocean in the air. The sleep without you cuddled in my pores. The light in my eyes is real.

So fare thee well my twisted companion. Sometimes I'll miss you, but mostly I won't. I've gone three months without you, and aim to go three hundred more.

P.S.  F#*% you too.