Good Morning! We went to sleep last night to the steady sound of rain running off the metal roof and into the gutters. There is something so completely relaxing about going to sleep knowing the garden is being taken care of all on it’s own. Something so delicious about curling up next to each other, with Willie tucked in by our feet and Waylon and Michael in their spots with a chill in the air. Covered well by flannel sheets and a blanket we’ve dubbed “Game of Thrones” for obvious reasons, I let myself float off into dreamland and didn’t stir until around 5:30am. By then the rain had stopped and we were surrounded by clouds. We were literally sleeping and dreaming INside a cloud. Life. Is. SO. GOOD!
The irony(?) of waking inside a cloud is not lost on me this week. I began the week weighted down with phlegm and fever, 2 things I am normally very good at avoiding. SO good in fact, I say all the time… that “I NEVER Get Sick!” Well, it got me. I feel fortunate for the fact that I was able to take the time I needed to relax and find my way pretty quickly back to health. Not so quickly that my brain felt ready to process and celebrate a milestone I passed this week though. Toward that end I would like to say a few things here, now.
One year ago Wednesday, on September 25th, I woke and decided I was finished with tobacco. This is something I have thought about doing LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE DAY for almost the last 30 years, but usually found my way around after breakfast, or on my way to work. About a year before that I had watched this interview with Sean Penn on Sunday Morning. He smokes throughout almost the entire interview and finally Tracy Smith asks him to address the elephant in the room. His response, as he looks closely at the cigarette in his hand is something like… You know I think about stopping every single day…. Right. This totally struck a cord. And for the next few months, I thought about it all the time, and then I would roll a cigarette and inhale.
I wrote about it to a pen pall of mine, telling him there were a few goals I had for the year. One was to buy our house. Another was to stop doing things I hate. And one was to quit smoking. I told him I wanted to stop, once and for all.
About a week later I got a packet in the mail from him. His name is Otto. I’d put him in his late sixties…. but he could be more and he might be less. He has one hand full of all 5 fingers and one’s got only 3. He used to carry 3 firearms on his person at all times. He stopped smoking 11 or so years ago and stopped drinking many years before that. I’ve only ever seen him work really hard. I’ve never seen him eat. I love him like an Uncle, or maybe even like a father figure. But back to the packet. It had a long hand written letter in his perfectly slanted script detailing how he quit smoking years ago. There were also about 10 dowels cut into 1.5 inch bits and a foot long strand of plastic tubing. He instructed me to cut the tubing into 1 inch pieces and thread them onto the dowels. Then I was to dip the dowels in cinnamon syrup or something like that. Then, when I got a craving for a cigarette, I was to chew and suck on them like my life depended on it. If that wasn’t working I was to imagine a wave, with me on it. And I was to ride that fucker until I got to the other side of the craving.
So, about a week later, I tried to quit. I say tried because it lasted for about 3 weeks. It was hard though, and I had a lot of shit going on. Stuff that made me want to smoke whenever I wanted to smoke. SO… after those 3 weeks I wrote Otto and said I would have to try again, another time. He said… you guessed it… there is no try. Only do.
Summer went by. We took a road trip. I smoked the whole way through it. Couldn’t imagine what it would be like NOT to smoke. I kept thinking to myself, like HOW ON EARTH would I be able to sit on my porch, talking with someone or by by myself, and NOT SMOKE. It didn’t seem possible.
And then on September 25th, just like I had been thinking and planning it or something, I woke up and said I was done. I said I quit. I went to the mirror in my bed room and I made a slash mark on it with the date. And then, I went about my day. I took it a part into each cigarette I would normally smoke each day. The first one was after breakfast and before I drove to work. The next one was in the car as I was driving. The next would be as I drove home. Then there was the one I had when I got home, with a drink, either on the porch in summer or in the winter in front of the fire. From there it was a crap shoot of how many I would have. Did we have the kids, was I sneaking when they weren’t looking. There was always the one after dinner. Maybe one right before bed and brushing my teeth. I mean.. I always said I smoked like 3-4 a day… and that there as I count them now is like 7, at least. And you know what, I got through each of those that first day. I did it. I only felt a little crabby. I had done it.
Then came day 2. It was harder. I put a slash mark on the mirror. I went about my day. And then the next. And then the next. As the days rolled on, it didn’t get any easier. It got REALLY FUCKING HARD. I felt like someone had stripped me naked and pushed me outside after rolling me in snot. Every feeling I had I had to FEEL. I was so uncomfortable. I was super on edge. I would have shots of tequila at random just to dull the reality of the feelings I was having.
And the thing was, things in my life were NOT easy. One of my businesses was 1 and 1/2 years into a downward spiral I could not pull it out of. I was putting money into it on a monthly basis to pay the bills. Money my husband had received from his own hard work. I felt like gum on the bottom of someone’s shoe. I felt guilty every day. And all the while I was trying to act like this not smoking thing was really not that big of a deal. I road my Peloton bike like my life depended on it.
On the 10th day I put a slash mark on the mirror and called the bank back. They said I had to transfer money. A lot of money, if I wanted payroll checks to be covered. And so I did. About $20,000. I told Erik. That didn’t feel good and it didn’t go well. I had a shot of tequila, then I got dressed and left the house to go celebrate the 5th year anniversary of the restaurant I had just poured all that money into. I did not feel like celebrating. I felt like staying home and smoking as many cigarettes as I could. But I did it. I got in my car and headed to my other restaurant that wasn’t having the celebration to check in. Once there I had a shot, maybe 2, of tequila. Then I got in my car and drove to restaurant #2. Putting on my happy boss face and telling myself it was all going to get better…. soon, I parked and went inside. Once there I had maybe 3 more shots. I had no food. The celebration got going and I rallied with my staff and had a margarita. Then another. I was starting to feel better. I was starting not to feel at all.
Around 8:30 I began the hour drive home. The point at which I got close to Boulder I started texting Erik that I was close and that’s when I saw the flashing lights. From there I was pulled over and spent the night in detox.
The rest is a story for another day. I promise to tell it. It is on the tip on my tongue and wants to be heard.
