Windchimes

oh why, oh why

I have to go buy nicotine patches tomorrow, or at least sometime before Sunday. Sunday's the big day, when I will start saving $1,187.85 a year, a conservative estimate. I entered 20 cigarettes in the "how many a day" window. I actually have no idea how many I smoke. That's because I buy them by the carton. Logically, a carton should last 10 days. However, my daughter, a social smoker (I'll never be able to understand how that works) gets in to them sometimes, and my husband will smoke one when he feels like smoking something besides one of his cigars. A conservative estimate still allows me to see the partial amount of money I'm saving as I forego cigarettes, adding smoke-free day after smoke free day, and that partial amount still adds up.

After I get through that first week, dubbed hell week at the website that helps me keep track of all this, I will have saved $21.63. I think I need to spend that amount of money on some kind of reward upon reaching that particular milestone. Or should I wait till after the second week (heck week) when the total will amount to $43.26? No, I think the sooner I reward myself, the more it will strengthen my resolve. I think my husband (hi honey!) should get me a gift catalogue (he knows what I'm referring to) at the end of that first week.

After the first month, I will have saved $95.79. Of course I will have spent a certain amount on nicotine replacement therapy, but that's a lot more temporary and will eventually result in less money spent on health care. I hope.

By starting the path to easier breathing on Sunday, I'll have 15 days between that start date and the start date for the fall semester. This is important because of a condition common to beginning quitters, dubbed "CRS" for "can't remember stuff." I think I'll begin being a better calendar keeper. Probably will need to refer to a kept calendar often.

Why have I decided to quit? What, among all the good reasons to quit smoking, are my personal motives? I'm going to keep this window open a long time, trying to remember those and fly in here to note them as the fly into my mind.

First of all, a short disclaimer. I am NOT quitting smoking to please all the non-smokers who quip "That's bad for your health" as they walk by. I love some of them, but as I usually quip back, "Gee, I didn't know that! I've never heard it before! Thanks for telling me. I would have never started smoking had I known that." My usual emotional response to that kind of thing is that the next craving comes sooner than usual. Just like the anti-smoking ads on television, when I get a chance to watch some (not often). I don't know how this works, but showing me what happens to the inside of a smoker's lungs just produces stress. Stress produces cravings. To succeed, I need to focus on the positive. My body directs me to the negative often enough by itself.

I should get ready for the influx of oxygen to my brain resulting from the resulting lack of carbon monoxide. Maybe I should tell myself to stay away from the carbon monoxide, instead of telling myself I'll be off nicotine (especially since I won't be off nicotine at first anyway, using the patch). Somehow, carbon monoxide sounds less appealing.

I've been told I'll have more energy. That makes sense. More oxygen in the blood stream, more energy. I need more energy. There are plenty of things I still want to do, with whatever time I have left, and only 24 hours in any given day. Seems a shame to sleep or feel tired through so many of them.

I'll be able to write without having to skip outside to feed the demon, saving me an average of an hour per every finishing stage of an 8-10 page research paper (again, a conservative estimate).

I'll be able to stay at indoor parties and meetings longer. And I won't have to worry about my breath so much or how my clothes smell so much while chatting with others at social gatherings.

My car will stay cleaner. Even if cluttered with books, papers, wrappers, pencils, pens, notebooks and such, nothing dirties it and makes it smellier than an overflowing ashtray.

I need to come up with some strategies for getting through the next two weeks, besides the nicotine replacement. I have drinking straws. I have a piano. Maybe I should make it a goal to learn Beethoven's Minuet in G. Or maybe I should just try to memorize pieces I can already play. Learning a new piece might produce too much stress. I have no.2 pencils. Need to buy another gross though, they're getting harder and harder to locate. Haha, I could keep myself busy sharpening 144 pencils. I have one of those old-fashioned crank sharpeners fastened to the wall over my kitchen trash can. I need to drink lots and lots of water. Hmm, I'm scattering my strategies a bit there.

I need to quit smoking because smoking doesn't fit in with my personal image of "the successful me." This goes back to those urges that pull me away from places I want to be. That slave-driver whip-handle (I think it's called a "quirt" that digs into my back muscles to let me know I must feed the demon soon while I'm trying to focus on a conversation. That claw keeps me focused on where I can break in the conversation to skip out, unless the conversation is especially fascinating. I'll have lots of opportunities to be involved in fascinating conversations over this next semester, and I need to be free of that claw. The "successful me" can't be the slave of anyone or anything. I want the freedom to decide when and where I'm going. This whole concept robs me of fully enjoying the successes I've already experienced. No matter who congratulates me or how enthusiastically they do it, that voice of the claw in the back of my brain chimes in with, "yeah, but I've still got you." No matter how much I tell myself it doesn't matter, somewhere, my consciousness knows it does.

I need to quit smoking to prepare for my successful teaching career. How can I focus on what I'm supposed to be doing if that claw still controls me?

J.H. Larrew
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