Day Seventy-One

'Hey Erika. I am no longer smoking!'

'What do you mean? Have you just stopped smoking cigarettes, or are you mentally no longer a smoker?'

'... I would say both'.

At least almost. Certainly, I still think about my past relationship with and habits revolting around cigarettes from time to time. But cigs phenomenologically exist in my mind in the same way old friends, lovers, and could-have-beens, Ghostbusters jumpsuits, Erector sets, and backyard Homerun Derbies: nostalgically reminding me of the ways things had been.

Like cigs, these things escort me to psychological safe places where every swing directs the tennis ball soaring over the giant pine tree fence, and every conversation is ripe with knowledge and insight, and every embrace implies, 'See you tomorrow'. I always remember the romance.

But of course, those moments remain forever existent in the past for a particular reason. A bit of psychological archeology always reveals the day the Derby incited a nest of hornets; the jumpsuit became too small; the parking lot 'Last Goodbye'; the daily recurrence of the tobacco-induced green-yellow goop hacked every morning.

So, the notion of 'mentally' quitting is, of course, a bit of a tricky one. I think back and reminisce on my relationship with cigs, and I don't think that will ever change; I'm not even sure I want those particular memories transform into havens of evil and death. And yet, I know that my smoker-self is in the past now, never to return in its identical form again. Even if I go out and buy a pack right now, it won't morph me back into that previous self; and it is not as though I yearn for a self anyway.

Perhaps it is merely part of our humanity to desire the past's eternal presence; to somehow live simultaneously both in the past and present. Or maybe we want to grasp firmly upon the past to preserve the presence of the present, knowing that someday, some minute, right now, it will be behind us. Can Spring be far behind?