I Don't Even Know Who I Am

Blank.

I know what I'm not. I barely know what I am. Don't worry this isn't some sort of mid-life crisis made up drama here. I'm not going to run off somewhere just to figure it all out. It's just that I have smoked cigarettes since I was 15 years old, and now that I've quit smoking, I don't really know what to do with myself.

It's been a whirlwind of mood swings, emotional outbursts, and crying over spilt milk. I've been clumsy, confused, bored, and angry. I've also been proud, confident and strong. I've never felt more assured of my success before. I feel like I'm going to make it. It feels right, and I'm going with it. There are two times a day that I really want a cigarette, in the morning, and in the evening, other than that it's been pretty much a breeze aside from developing yet another new personality. Gosh I wish there was a pill for bad temperment. Oh heck, I tried to spell check that, but I've never been able to use the dern thing. I'm not sure if it's spelled right, and I'm on dial up here, so give me a break. It took five minutes just to load this page.

So It's been 8 days since I've took a puff. Now, I know that might not sound like a lot, but if you've ever quit smoking, well then you realize of course that at this point counting the days is all you can do, and each one helps get through the next one. Pretty soon I'm sure I'll be counting the weeks, and hopefully at some point I will just forget the whole thing ever happened.

Boy, I've never really been a non-smoker as an adult, I still don't quite know what to do with myself, all I know is now that I don't smoke, I don't want to do half the stuff I used to do. It's changed everything. My personality has changed as well. I think I must have used nicotine as a means to stifle myself. When a confrontation arised, I would just go smoke it off. Now, I have a hard time shutting up.

The hardest thing about it is the mood swings, but I don't even care about that. I thought about it yesterday as I left work, I thought, how am I going to get through this without getting in trouble at work for saying something I shouldn't, then I thought, I don't care. When I'm freakin' 60 and gasping for every bit of air that comes from my oxygen source, I'm not going to give a flying monkey turd what those people thought of me, I'm doing this for my life, and for my daughter, and for many other reasons. If those people can't take me being a bit more blunt, and a bit more moody, then they don't really care about me, or my life. Luckily, that has not been the case, although I realize that non-smokers are only so tolerant any way, and I have to make my best effort to behave.

All of this does not solve my problem of quite a lot of excess free time. I feel no need to watch t.v. since I can't smoke while I do it. I don't feel nearly as tired as I used to. I've been waking up pretty much every day before my alarm clock. I've been going to bed a lot earlier as well, mostly because I can't think of anything I'd really like to do at all. I've been eating like a big fat pig. Oh lord, that's what I should really be worried about. I'm predict a 25 pound weight gain. But even that I don't care about. I'll just be fatter, whoopty do. I am going to work on that later, right now the most important thing was getting off the sticks.

Maybe I'll get around to some exercise at some point, but I don't intend to make myself do it if my self does not want to do it. Right now my self is dealing with enough crap with the emotional land mines that keep popping up everywhere. I used to dread that part of quitting, this time I think I'll just deal with it.

I can't name all the things that have changed since I became the biggest quitter ever known to man. I can't do it. Mostly because it would be more boring than the rest of all this here. I'm sorry. I do consider myself a fairly boring person. I don't think I'm all that exciting to be around, I can't imagine what it must be like having to listen to me drone on about my self! One of the most boring topics I can think of. In the words of the great Jonathon Anton of Bravo's Blow Out, "I'm so over me."