Details Schmetails

When I woke up on 1/11/11 I became a non smoker. Again. Technically I guess you could say it happened on 1/10/11 seeing as though I flicked my last cigarette at about 11:30 that night but details schmetails.

This is the umpteenth time I’ve tried to quit, as anyone who has read this blog long enough knows, but I have a feeling this one might just stick because I’m really tired of gasping through my workouts. When we joined the P90X family last year Matt & I decided that upon completing our first twelve week round we were going to quit. So quit we did!

I tend to be a hypocrite in a whole bunch of areas of my life -- calling myself Green but turning the heat up any chance I can get, eating healthier yet still smoking -- so I guess this is the first step in trying to rectify that problem.

Okay, technically that isn’t entirely true. I first started to correct it by saying I wanted to write novels full time and then actually began the process of querying Agents to have my manuscript published. That is working out pretty good as I just had an agency request to read the first two chapters of the book based on just the query. I sent that along the other day and will wait the prescribed two-three months for a reply. It might be a request for more, it might not, but either way interest is being generated and I’m thrilled.

Thankfully they didn’t request the synopsis seeing as though I still haven’t had the mental capacity to turn 230 pages into 20. I guess sometimes I also work better under pressure so I’ll do it when I have to.

Maybe that’s not the best solution but it’s all I got right now so it’ll have to do.

Smoking has been a part of my life for all of my life in some capacity or another as most of my relatives on my dad’s side were smokers before I was even born and some still are now. I started at about age fourteen in a casual, social way but really became a smoker at eighteen. That was when I graduated high school and was no longer involved in sports.

I’m starting to see the connection to athleticism and inability to wheeze while in the midst of that athletic activity. Shocker, I know.

Plus that’s almost twenty years ago now. Scary thought that I’ve been poisoning myself for that long. With so many other changes afoot this one should be a no brainer. Something I don’t even have to think about because it just makes sense.

But that’s the very place I start to go mad -- my mind. The body is almost out of the physical withdrawal symptoms now and chewing the replacement gum has helped with that a lot but last night I was definitely in the bargaining phase in my head. ‘If I could only be that type of person who has a smoke just after dinner…’ But I can’t. So I won’t.

Matt is using the patch and so far he seems to be doing okay too. I think he’s been at it almost as long as me so I’m sure he’s going through a lot of the same internal stuff I am. We’re trying not to be cranky or take it out on each other. So we pretty much haven’t said boo to each other in the past three days.

That would be okay in most situations seeing as though he goes to work outside the house but yesterday he worked from home because of our second “blizzard” in as many weeks and I think we said about three words to each other all day. I just chewed a lot of gum and focused on my class while he rubbed his shoulder under the patch and focused on his job.

Speaking of, my first class is going pretty well, it’s a Psychology course though (which usually escapes me) and I’m already looking forward to my next class, Genres of Literature or something like that. In this one we’re studying all manner of human development and how physical, mental and social aspects in our lives directly relate to how we grow and shift as adults.

Socially I don’t really hang out with any other smokers on a consistent basis, besides Matt, so that’s helpful and physically I’m tired of experiencing the negative effects of it on my body so, again, that is an easy jump. Like I said, it’s all in my head now.

And I will move past it, I just know its going to take some time.