Smoke

By Bee Bornheimer

Staff Writer

t the end of January, I came home from a party, went up three flights of stairs, sat down, and could barely catch my breath. Having been a smoker for almost five years, this kind of exhaustion had happened to me before. That particular night the winded feeling was no worse than it had ever been. The hideous odor of stale cigarettes on my clothes, hands, and hair was no worse than it had ever been either. Still, I can remember lying in bed that night thinking that I was finally fed up with being a smoker.
The next day, I made a minor goal for myself. I would make it through the day without a cigarette, but I wouldn't harbor any unrealistic expectations of quitting forever.
I made it through that day and decided to continue with it. I was reluctant to admit, even after the first few days, that I had really quit smoking. My smoking friends would look at me with disappointment and say, "You're not really quitting are you? No one likes a quitter..."
"Oh, no," I would respond, fearful of upsetting them, "I'm just not going to smoke for a few days."
It wasn't just the fear of disappointing them which kept me from openly committing to the non-smoking life. It was more the fear of failing at the task while everybody watched. If I just kept my plans to myself, and did not inform anyone that I was actually quitting, then if I did fail, at least no one would know about it.
That was a foolish plan for a number of reasons. First of all, a smoker at this college becomes part of a culture. People who smoke have a good sense of who the other smokers here are. When one person drops out of this exclusive circle, they take a big leap to "The Other Side." They are no longer a "Smoker," but they have not yet established themselves as a "Non- Smoker." They are a "Person Who is Trying to Quit." They wobble around in that grey area between the two sides, still unsure where they will end up.
The second reason that it would have been foolish of me to try to keep this change to myself is that I would have been depriving myself of heaps of praise from everyone I tell. Surely this praise will run out after a while, but for the time being, I can at least get a few words of praise everytime I announce my progress to my friends.
I am at the two month point of the long and gruelling journey of the nonsmoker, and am starting to realize that no matter how much easier it gets to make it through the day without having a cigarette, there will always be a part of me that wants one. Actually, there will be many parts of me that will always want a cigarette. My hands will want the cigarette to keep them busy at parties, my mouth will miss the taste of each puff, my insides will miss the feeling of smoke filling my lungs, and my whole body will miss the relaxation that takes over with each cigarette.
I miss being part of the smoking culture- going outside after lunch for a cigarette, sharing the last cigarette in a pack with a friend, smoking while studying for an exam or writing a paper. There is a certain sense of comfort in having a pack of cigarettes around. Each one was a tiny pleasure, or could be a little reward for a certain amount of work done. Smoking a cigarette was something to do, a ritual to go through at certain times in the day.
Still, even with all these things that I miss about smoking, I don't think I am overwhelmingly drawn to reentering the smoking world (yet). The nice things about quitting smoking have, at least so far, outweighed the drawbacks. I can breath much better, I have more energy, I smell better, I spend less money, and in general I feel much healthier. Since I never told my parents that I smoked in the first place, now I no longer have to feel guilty because I am hiding something from them. Best of all is all the praise I get from nonsmokers (as well as admiration from smokers) for making it through each passing week with my lungs intact.