The Great Procrastinator

Sure, we've all got a bit of procrastinator in us. I'm sure some of you reading this (if I let any one read it) have some serious procrastination chops too!

I'm fairly confident I could procrastinate you under the table on your best day.

Take the now relatively common endeavor of quitting smoking. It's pretty much a daily thing in the world these days. I've had some friends with some great success in the past year or so.

Me, I've been thinking about it.

I've been thinking about quitting smoking since I was 14. I started when I was 12. Even at 14 I was pretty confident I could "quit any time I want to".

I'm on the south end of 48 now.

Master procrastinator.

Don't even try to ball in my game.

I've been going to quit for many a moon. It's just never the right time.

Too much stress, too many things going on, I'll do it as soon as... blah, blah, blippety blah, blah.

The fact is there's never going to be a "right time". There's never going to be a calm, relaxed, stress free period of time that lends itself to the undertaking of removing a bad habit from my life.

But that time has come.

I've seriously been kicking it around for awhile, particularly the past month. I've actually been working toward it for the past three weeks and next Monday, December 15th, I will have my last cigarette.

I've been building up the Wellbutrin in the system courtesy of my saw bones. I've got nicotine gum and lozenges, I've got a vaporizer for the tough times. And I'm swapping out cigarettes for an occasional stogey when I really feel I need a little something extra.

I've got my list of reasons I don't want to smoke any more: I'm sick of it, I don't like the cravings, I don't like the smell, I don't like the mess, I could go on & on about what I don't like about it. It costs money that could be much better spent elsewhere. Very few things on the list of what I do like about it.

Whereas once upon a time everybody smoked and it was just what people do, not so much in todays world. Smokers have become the minority.

Standing outside in the cold. Hiding around a corner for a few quick puffs because everybody you're with doesn't smoke. Most places even have their outdoor smoking area's looking like skid row too. Passersby think they're walking past a freak show or something.

My Mom quit after many years in her late thirty's or early 40's. She was a huge smoker. Three packs a day or more some times.

She was pissed that I ever started.

Nineteen years ago yesterday I lost my Mom in a car accident, and while I think for the most part I've probably made her proud of me over the years, this is one thing I haven't ever really gotten too, that I know she would appreciate.

I had already been planning on quitting and making a run for it before I scheduled my physical appointment with my doctor. We had talked about it and I was pretty resolved at the time. He prescribed Wellbutrin and told me to take it three to four weeks before I quit, to build it up in my system.

I was good with that. Plenty of time to work up to it.

I was pretty worried though. I never go to the doctor, even though I happen to think my doctor is the greatest on the planet. You see, in addition to the bad habit of smoking, I have other little quirks such as raging OCD (try to stop doing anything when your mind tells you that you must do things. A certain way, at a certain time, blah, blah, and if you don't you'll die or something bad will happen to you. Add in extreme irrational thinking (as if the above isn't bad enough). For example, the reason I avoid the doctor is quite simply that, no one ever found out they were going to die without going to the doctor. Doctor= bad news. No doc, no bad news, right?

Because I had been being treated for high cholesterol for awhile and because I smoke, and because of how long it had been since I'd been in, Doc ordered tests and chest x-rays.

Now you're thinking. "Oh no! Scott's doctor found something and said he has to quit"!

Quite the contrary friends & neighbors.

All the tests and x-rays came back normal, fine and surprisingly clear except for the fact that I obviously had a bit of a cold at the time.

Now some might decide "hey, I guess smoking isn't really affecting me that much then!" and continue on.

Me, I'm looking at it more like, "how freaking lucky am I?" Seriously! Thirty-three years of smoking, not exceptionally lightly I might add, and the x-rays come back clear & normal?

Rather than a sign that it's ok to continue to smoke, I take it as a sign that it's a damn good time to get off the bus.

Smoking has gotten me through some crap. It's no secret 2014 has not been a barrel of laughs in my world. Serious illnesses in both my family and Kris'. Financial shenanigans that damn near drove me crazy, opening and closing a business within six months, and too much more to bore you with. That's just 2014.

Cigarettes have been my constant sidekick through many a hard time and a lot of good ones too.

Saying goodbye to an "old friend" is pretty hard. Unless you really see that the friend wasn't really your friend at all. Cigarettes are like the good looking girl who makes sure all her friends aren't as attractive as her, so she can lead the pack. She seems like they're hero, helping them out and getting them a bit more social status around the school yard than they would have without her.

Friends don't control friends. Cigarettes make damn sure they control every aspect of your life. If I go here can I smoke? If not, how long before I'll be able to smoke? If it's going to be awhile, is there a way to sneak off and have one?

Controlled by a bunch of shredded tobacco wrapped in white paper with a nifty little filter to catch nowhere near enough of the bad stuff.

Once my Mom found out I started smoking, she was hot. Especially if she wanted me to do something and I was too busy smoking.

"The ALL MIGHTY cigarette!" she would exclaim to show her displeasure. I've always remembered that. Not just the words. The tone, the exasperation, all of it. I think when I was younger I didn't even get what she was saying.

I sure as hell do now.

The all mighty cigarette. How many things have been affected one way or another because of being controlled by the need to smoke? I have no interest in trying to catalog that mess. I know it's a lot.

I'm a fairly independent guy. I do my own thing, march to the beat of a psychotic drummer with a bell festooned jester hat. I let nothing and no one control me in any way because I spent so many years of my life being controlled by others, by rules, by walls and even sometimes by bars and marriages that weren't operating the way they should.

I will rebel and fight against any attempt to control me. At all costs. I will not allow it.

As my favorite and recently departed dear Aunt Donna always said "I'm free, white and over the age of 18: I'll do whatever the hell I want". So the "white" part may no longer be "politically correct", but that's also something I don't allow to control me.

It has come to my attention that through some oversight, some back door sneak attack, cigarettes somehow got control of me. More so than anything else.

Sneaky, tricky, dirty, conniving little bastard. How did that happen?

I have no idea how it happened, but now that I know it did, I'm calling bullshit.

Next Monday night I'll have my last cigarette. Next Monday night cigarettes will be squawking and screaming and telling me "but DUDE! The doc said it's cool man!"

Bullshit.

I'm in control of my life. Not the all mighty cigarette who has no might once it's secret is exposed.

So I shall quit. I will be in control of whether I have a lozenge, a stick of gum, a puff of the old vaporizer, whatever I have to do, I'll decide and I'll be in control.

I will succeed because I will not be controlled.

I will succeed because only I can eliminate everything I don't like about smoking.

I will succeed because failure, while I've experienced my fair share, is not my strong suit.

I will succeed because I just told everybody and I'll look like an idiot if I don't.

Speaking of which, if you're reading this it means that my irrational fear concerning anyone reading anything I write privately must be on it's way out too.