I was invited to a party today, but I didn't want to go. Some major shifts have occurred in my life since the "Lock Down." I understand the people who are going bonkers, we just go bonkers in such different ways.
Recently, after the better part of 36 years being mostly smoke free, I began to smoke again. Cigarettes have been the most prominent addictive behavior in my life, that is, the kind that can be perceived and measured. I call it an addictive behavior because it crosses the border out of reason, and into self-destrucive behavior you don't even understand, but do fall prey to.
I think it was a month ago that I began to smoke again. My entire social life had been shut down like a small town. Not only me, but most of my friends associated freely amongst our friendship groups, having lunch, going to historic places, going on walks, drives, and research/discovery adventures. March 9, I had lunch with my friend Nancy for her birthday - last outside social activity.
Two friends have made an effort to come to see me, for which I am grateful as I am afraid to drive my car any distance or on the highway.
So I spend almost all of my time for the past two months a human with a dog and a few cats. I can only assume the constant isolation, which felt perfectly fine to me, must have nonetheless triggered my smoking addiction, which has always been triggered in the past by unusual social group events like family holidays, or emotional pain from some domestic situation. Otherwise, I spent decades, months, weeks on weeks NOT smoking, and suddenly a button got pushed somewhere and like a robot, I drove to the 7-11 and bought cigarettes. I went from 2 or 3 a day to 5 a day, to 2 every part of the day: morning, lunch time, dinner time, bedtime - out on the porch lighting up and watching the stars.
The various counties of my incorporated being are in dispute over my addictive smoking. My lungs, heart, throat, mouth, bronchial tubes, are all united in saying "stop smoking" and the United Nations which is my brain, having issued warnings, stays ignored as some blind emotion drives me to take out the cigarette and smoke it.
To a quick view it might appear that boredom incites my desire to smoke, and yet, I am not certain that I have ever entertained 'boredom' because wherever I am, there is something of interest. But maybe I am bored and I don't know it.
Memorial Day and I can't help but think of the young, beautiful, strong, laughing young men I always saw in my mother's photo box. They were sailors in World War II, in Florida waiting to get shipped out to what no one could imagine. I see the pictures of my father grinning, in his sailor suit, chin tilted up, like a sun illuminated Greek sculpture.
All the soldiers and sailors that you saw in the documentaries about World War II also smoked all the time and cigarettes were a coveted material good. Definitely those fellows weren't bored. They were probably quietly terrified. Maybe I am quietly terrified.
When I think of the most terrifying events in my life, I was pretty quiet about it: childbirth, divorce, all those invasive control wars.
Now my life has a peaceful routine without stress, and I am never bored because I read, and draw, and listen to music, and watch documentaries, films and paint. Still, I want to smoke and somehow it comforts me.
Yesterday, discussingt our individual fears, a friend and I concluded, you can't do anything about the future. If you worry and agonize over it, you feel anxious and depressed. But if you float out onto a general positive current of hope, you feel better. Since you can't control the future, why wouldn't you choose to feel good rather than bad? But, I suppose, a question comes up about whether you can control what you feel. Many of my friends believe you can do that through recognizing them, and using strategies to divert the energy into positive rather than negative. But, maybe some people can't and maybe we can't always either.
Sometimes I think smoking a cigarette is kind of a channel changer.
Well, eventually, I will have to quit again.
Happy trails & Hoping you stay well!
Jo Ann
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