The burning ember of my cigarette stares in relentlessly mockery of my half-assed attempts to drop the habit. I've lied to myself for years, placated by seemingly adequate health and the comfort that comes from knowing my peers also smoke. It's not unheard of for collegiate life to beget lackadaisical morals, but the good times are, in layman's terms, too legit to quit. Despite these facilitating factors, I understand it would be incorrect to put blame on anyone but myself for keeping up such a detrimental hobby.The end of the aughts should have marked the last of my rendezvous with big tobacco. But when the time came, the old did not go out and the new did not arrive as expected. Mostly because I made zero effort. The hedonist in me rages at the thought of never again knowing the succulent taste of a long-awaited drag, and can't fully grasp long-term consequences anymore than, say, a prisoner serving multiple life sentences for a crime committed long ago. This is my crime of passion. Is it really all that bad?
The answer is yes. YES. I've heard and seen enough to know better, and I'm not trying to ignore or dispute well-known facts about smoking. I recognize the harm when I wheeze and cough climbing a flight of stairs, and when I wake up after a night out and my throat refuses to function except to expel an inordinate amount of excess phlegm. Hack, cough, wheeze, repeat. Not a cute display, to say the least.
Irony of ironies, my father is a pulmonologist. Otherwise known as doctor specializing in the treatment of lungs and the aftereffects felt by years of smoking. I remember him teaching us to wrinkle our noses at the sight of a cigarette, to give each smoker we encountered a look of disgust. In fact, the first time I ever tried one wasn't until I was nineteen... and I must say, it was DELICIOUS. Unfortunately delicious.
And here I am, almost six years later, still puffing away. I hate the habit, yet just can't put it down for good. What's it going to take for me to finally get it together?
To be continued...
