THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

I don't know how many of you have heard. But this weekend marks the end of one of the most important relationships of my life. We have been together 30 years. Man, I was only 11 when we met, but from the first time we were together, I knew it was going to be the sort of love that lasts a lifetime.

But sadly, sometimes you know that even though you are soulmates, one of you gives too much, one of you takes too much. It can be toxic. It can dull your senses, hurt your heart, give you emphysema and, of course, cancer.

Yes, I am breaking up with cigarettes. And it's killing me, but also, it's killing me. They say that breaking up is hard to do. And I know, I know that it's true. We have split up before.

I would occasionally try to be good in middle school. Yes, I was that creepy middle school kid, walking along the train tracks, stunting my growth with a pack of my father's Winstons burning a hole in the pocket of my sweet denim decal pocketbook listening to my new walkman play Billy Joel's badass PIANO MAN album. But I knew it was wrong. So I would stop and then I would start.

In high school my single most vivid memory is sitting in the girls bathroom reading Stephen King's THE SHINING and smoking True blues that I stole from Mrs. Dansik whose demon children I babysat for twice a week. Her kids were awful. She owed me! Plus they owned a deli and had, like, eight cartons of cigarettes open in the kitchen at all times. They were practically begging me to help myself. Reading and smoking. They go together like the apostle Paul and guilt – forever married in my mind.

Okay, college. I promised my mom I wouldn't start smoking when I went away to college. This was an easy promise to make since I had been smoking for 7 years by the time I left. Hey, there is a difference between careful syntax and lying to your mom.

I started out with Marlboro lights. So freaking cool! Freshman year I would go into Boston alone one day a week and buy a pack and just sit and read and watch people. The McDonalds in Downtown Crossing in the morning, the Public Garden in the afternoon and (after a trip to the Boston Public Library, of course) the bar in the Copley Plaza where they never once thought I was a hooker looking for business in the hotel bar. Must have been my Levis and crew neck sweater.

Sophomore year I met my new roommates, Sheila and Cheryl. They were gorgeous and popular and probably never would have befriended a geeky little nascent-hippie like me except for the one thing we had in common. We smoked Virginia Slims Light Menthols. Good grief, they were the cotton candy of cigarettes. We ran around and went to clubs and neglected our studies. It was glorious.

From 1986-1992 I was fortunate to live a glorious extended adolescence. I smoked generic cigarettes at Grateful Dead shows, I smoked hand-rolled in Europe, I tried to smoke less when I got home and moved in with Rich because he hated it. And then I met the man who would stop me in my tracks.

He was actually a fetus, named Frank. (Well, full disclosure, he was called Cleatus the Fetus until a few days after he was born.) Yeah, I quit to have kids. I had a pretty good run, too. I had a couple of slips between boys, but for the most part, I didn't smoke for nearly 15 years - from 1992 until after I had been working at the high school awhile.

Any teachers out there? Holla! Yeah, you all know why I went back to smoking... Actually, it wasn't the stress it was the summer vacation. All this time and fresh air and blue sky! My kids were adolescent, they loved it if I went to Salem Willows and sat on a blanket and read novels all day while chain-smoking! Granted, they didn't know about the chain smoking part, but they loved having me gone. I'd smoke all summer, quit all winter. Until my summers got longer and my winters never materialized and I realized I was just a full time smoker. And I was 50 and it was time to get over it.

So here I am. I have what I hope is my last pack of Camel blues in my purse and I am going to blow through them, perhaps weeping, as I drive around this weekend. I have a copy of Jennifer Weiner's HUNGRY HEART on my passenger seat and that looks like the perfect smoking book. And it's about food issues. Bwahahahaha! Look for that post coming soon...

I have been saying, “I will quit for good when Trump concedes on November 9.” So much for good intentions. But I am not going to let him keep me chained to this toxic habit. It is embarrassing and unhealthy and while I seem to have completely dropped the “bad relationship” metaphor, I need to break up with cigarettes. I will miss you forever, my darlings, but it is a pain in the ass always scrambling around to try to find an excuse to leave the house to smoke. And also you make me smell like death. (TM, Annika McKenzie)

So (to paraphrase) I press on, grouchily, fingernails bit down to the nub, hopefully into the future.