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WILL I HAVE TO FIGHT EVERY DAY TO BE A NON-SMOKER?
REPOST By CPerry on 08 24 2002
A 3-month Quitter made this comment yesterday:
"Wishing I just never started in the first place. It's scary to know that you gotta deal with this for a lifetime!”
What a thought that is... 'for a lifetime’! I thought I'd ramble on for a bit about that concept. 'Lifetime' implies forever, in our own personal lexicon... or the span of our existence. It ends when we do. How dispiriting to think that we might have to fight cravings for every day of the rest of our lives, that we are not 'born again' as unsmokers!
Or is it? Is it, really? Think about it. What else are we? Aren't we an extraordinary conglomeration of wishes and wisdom, old, half-healed hurts and remembered joys... loves, sorrow... all perceptions, every sight and sound, all encounters, the guy who flipped us off at the light and the one who smiled, holding the door...
The cusp of both failure and success; fear, the lonely nights - and those filled with loving... aren’t we all that, friends, aren't we filled with everything listed here, and more?
Add more riches to that list. Add this path, and what we learn here about ourselves, and in helping others. Add tears, anger - and the horror of facing our addicted selves. The warmth of shared joy, the community concern, and the calls for help always answered, here in this place. (If only the real world were like this, and no cry went unanswered!)
We are becoming more ourselves by these encounters. Finding our way through addiction, knowing our behaviors and working to overcome them… Yes, I know you feel like smoking... But will that really make the hurt go away, will it get the job back, reconcile the lover…? Negotiating this rocky path, we learn to trust our feet and senses, perhaps for the first time. We find that there are times when the assistance of others is a marvelous thing, and that laughter rising from adversity has a special tang to it.
When you ask 'does the (smoke-free) road go on forever?' Know that the answer must be - yes… And so do you? Look back from where you stand, though... look back with your wiser self to that earlier place - and know that you have changed and grown… Once, you know, I was young and lithe and lovely. My eyes had more sparkle, and they did not require bifocals... but when I look at the world now, it is with eyes that have absorbed all they have seen, and that can still wonder at and appreciate the beauty of the world…
I seem to have evolved a different sense of beauty, over time… your greying hair is lovely, the lines, and all you are - because of who you are - is beautiful. The tree with its injuries, my old cat with her slower gait; a hand held out with love is beautiful, always… I am talking here about how age as a reality of life is forever with us, inescapable - and how our changing perception of its effects can enrich our lives beyond anything we might have imagined.
Why should this non-smoking thing be different? SHOULDN'T it be forever a part of the rich tapestry that we weave - our lives, ourselves? It is a part of me.
The Q is a part of me… and when I think of how my life has changed in the 22 months I've now been quit... I know that for me, everything I've just said is true. I am forever changed and far richer for this experience!
So, to all: I do not wish you 'un-smokers'. We cannot employ the magical thinking of childhood, though that impulse never quite vanishes. We can,
however, weave all we do and learn, all sorrow, joy... into a rich and beautiful tapestry. For a lifetime - Our masterpiece!