Smoking and Self-Righteous People
So, I turn on the tv and see that Rachel Ray is talking about skin damage and women. She brings on some 20-something guy who berates a woman in the audience for being a smoker and tells her “you just have to stop or you’re going to look like this…”, and then they show a picture of what she’ll probably look like in 10 years. Reminds me of those photos they show of crackheads to scare kids from starting down that dark road.
I’m 40-something; been smoking for about 30 years. I smoke to prevent myself from killing someone! Given a chance to go back in time, I never would have started, but that’s where it’s at. Smoking relieves the stress when I know that my newest doberman has peed somewhere and I can’t find it. It dulls the olfactory senses when I leave a client’s home that smells like pee, poop, and well…old people. It calms the rage when the soon-to-be ex tells me he’s leaving, after 9 years of supporting him financially and emotionally (while he was trying to become the best fucking musician he could be). So, if smoking ages me, the tradeoff is worth it!
hey eun mi, i know the smoking is about survival and coping. i just want you to be healthy and be around forever~! glad to know about your blog. keep on writing great poetry.
Ah . . . smoking! I smoked my first cigarette at five years old; stole it from the old man. I started inhaling when I was nine and smoking in front of my parents (after almost burning the house down) at 15. I haven’t smoked a cigarette in years, though for most of that time I smoked pot every day to help me deal with the jones.
Now I smoke cigars on and off. When I do I inhale, otherwise what’s the point? It’s like drinking decaffeinated coffee or fake beer. Sorry. I’d rather be dead.
Of course, I have to temper all this with the reality that I have two young children I brought into my life and, at nearly sixty years old, I need to be around for another twenty years (at least) – so I’m trying to be responsible. Stop – Start – Stop – Start. I need at least one vice and they’re getting so much more difficult to hang on to.
People who insist I stop smoking have never seen me under the influence of nicotine withdrawl. They stop worrying about my health if they do and start worrying about their own.
Love your poetry. Keep up the great work!
wondering if I’m an ex-smoker turned self-righteous..? Nope – but ex-smoker yes. “Hello my name is Brit Kim Sung Kyung and I admit to having inhaled thousands’n'thousands of cigarettes in the name of stress, pressure to stay slim/anorextic! And I wasn’t prepared when I joined a yoga-meditation course that – an awful stench was being released – not by my fellow yogi’s but.. from my lungs! eeewwhhch – that actually made me stop smoking – and start BREATHING .. I’m still not going self-righteous.. but just had to leave a message saying – there is life out there – after smoking – You are not alone – if you dare go there* will look by more often