For some people this is an everyday, regular thing. To some this craving is normal.
I don't smoke.
I've had maybe three cigarettes in my lifetime--none of which I smoked completely from start to finish.
Every time I've tried smoking, it resulted in uncontrollable coughing.
99% of the time I am disgusted by smoke and revolted by the idea of even standing in the same room with a smoker let alone sticking a papered wad of burning tobacco between my lips.
Today is my Dad's birthday (I'm writing this a day early, so that would be September 12th).
It marks just over 9 months since he died. He would have been 59. He died of lung cancer, and he was a smoker.
I spent most of the past 9 months (as well as several months prior to his death) being angry at him and at smokers in general. During that time I don't think I ever confessed that sometimes I get the urge to smoke a cigarette.
I'm not sure if it has anything to do with my Dad or not.
Sometimes when I smell the lingering of a Marlboro, it's almost as though I'm sitting in my dad's kitchen at the bar with him smoking across from me. He'd be laughing and his eyes would do that crinkling thing at the corners like mine do.
 |
| Do you see the crinkles??? |
At least I got his eye crinkles--proof that life is worth smiling about.
~live your own truth~
I had my first cigarette when I was eight years old. I found half a pack with my best friend and we decided to smoke them. We went out to the wilderness (an empty subdivision plog behind a golf course in South Jordan)and each lit one up. He coughed and hacked a lot. I down mine with ease. And then I finished his. And then the rest of the pack.
ReplyDeleteFrom that point, until today, I still love to smoke. I don't do it often and when I do, I usually only go through a pack or two before I quit again - just to start again six months to a year later.
Anyway, the whole point is that I understand the random craving that comes with remembering family members who smoke and I also recognize the loss that can be so poignantly there when I think of cigarette smoke and lost love ones who used them.
I hope you know that I love you and I really like your crinkles.
I get that to. My whole family smoked. And despite what physiology tells me I feel calmer. It's a comfort, but a comfort that stinks, leaves a grime in my mouth, abd burns me when i accidentally drop it while driving... but still a comfort.
ReplyDeleteAnd sorry about your dad.
Beautiful post. Anger's a funny thing, isn't it? As are weird cravings. But I love the shared eye crinkles and you're right: "life is worth smiling about."
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post. I love your ideas, and your eye crinkles, and your strange cravings.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I crave pickles and I don't know why....