Pete, I Heard You Loud and Clear

I miss smoking. Sometimes I want a cigarette and the wanting is so natural that I forget I ever quit. I don’t even know how long it’s been. I know that sometime in late July or early August 2004, I began cutting back to three a day, then two, then one. I don’t even know how I quit, just that at some point I stopped being a smoker. Maybe I threw away half a pack and said, “Done.” Or maybe I finished a pack and just didn’t buy any more. I wish I would have remembered.

I guess it doesn’t matter. The point is,I made a deal with myself many years ago (ten? Twelve?) I would quit when the first of three circumstances occurred.
1. Pregnancy. Yes, you read that right. Now go get a paper towel and wipe your coffee off the screen; it’s not that ridiculous.
2. My voice became my primary source of income. The $30-an-hour voiceovers and commercials hardly counted as ‘primary’, and since the NHL National Anthem gigs don’t pay…well, ‘moot’ is the word that comes to mind.
3. I turned 30.

Now, I could choose to be depressed that 30 came first, but for some reason I really wasn’t. I liked the idea of turning 30; it felt like I was finally getting issued my Grown Up Card and with it a new appreciation for the fleeting nature of a healthy body. If I ruined it, I wasn’t getting a do-over. Lose your teeth? Stuck with fake choppers and mouth glue forever. Accidentally wax off your eyebrows? You’ll be lucky if you don’t spend the next five years looking like Powder in a bad wig. Charbroil your lungs with a nice coating of sticky black tar? You wind up leaving behind a lot of people who should not have had to say goodbye so soon. This I knew from experience.

So I quit, for the fourth and final time. It was different this time from the get-go. I didn’t make an announcement, stage a New Age-y cleansing ceremony, or count off the number of days I’d been ‘smoke free’. In my head I simply checked off the box marked, “Non Smoker” and went on with my life. There was no question about it, so the struggle inside was largely ignored much the way a mother ignores the senseless bickering in the backseat of the minivan.

It was the sensuality of smoking I loved. I never depended on the nicotine; in the course of a busy day I would sometimes find several hours had passed without a craving on the horizon. I did like having something to do while waiting around, which we military types do a lot of. It was also a bonding experience. If I found myself in new surroundings, I could depend on the smoke pit to yield at least some conversation, if not a kindred spirit. And it was so good for curbing hunger pangs. I could easily forego the Twinkies if I had pack of smokes and fifteen minutes to spare.

I don’t know why, but I still occasionally torture myself with the richly detailed recollection of exactly how it felt to light one up. I’ll imagine the feel of a new pack in my hands, the crinkle of cellophane as I peeled it open to reveal twenty perfect white cylinders of mint-scented tobacco ready to burn. Tap one out, raise it to my mouth where it would either perch jauntily between my teeth while I fished for a lighter, or if a light was offered, would be placed gently between my lips, soft as a kiss and every bit as comforting. Carefully breathing out through my nose, I would watch it catch fire and sizzle ever so softly. My eyelids would flutter closed for that first deep draw as I sucked gently at the pure white filter, tasting for the incongruous mix of menthol and burning tar. Removing the cigarette from my mouth, I would part my lips and inhale deeply, drawing the smoke deeper to satisfy my need. And I relished the reward; first the gentle punch to the lungs, then the slow, sensuous spread of poison into the blood rushing headlong for my arms, my hands, my thighs. I could even feel it in my knees. This is what I loved. This is what I craved. This is the lover that would murder me in due time.

This thing, this addiction -- I don’t think I will ever get over it. Although I am and will forevermore be a non-smoker in deed, my mind still registers the loss like the end of a love affair. The ache fades, but the need remains forever.