On Smoking Cigarettes

This morning I found the bravery to admit that I like smoking cigarettes. I know that there is an entire cultural conversation about why I like smoking cigarettes, the nicotine, and why I shouldn't like smoking cigarettes, the cancer. I agree that both exist in every pack and puff.

But I've watched a lighted cigarette whisper and wind its way around my fingers. I imagine it, beautiful, winding its sinister way through my lungs like a dark Russian novel. There's something about the act of smoking, the way it accompanies my pensiveness and my coffee.

I have discovered that you can smoke and still successfully train for a half-marathon. This past fall, I answered a company-wide challenge at the publishing house where I work to run my city's half-marathon. Since leaving college, I've been singing a gradual lament about my sagging ability to burn calories without exercising. I thought the half-marathon would be a perfect double whammy. I'll kick smoking and get in shape. I even signed a pledge to this effect.

For months things were fine. But you walk through some second-hand smoke, you hang out at a bar with friends, you grab coffee with some smokers. My life, it seemed, was never more than one or two degrees removed from bumming. It did me in; my self-discipline is very selective.

This morning, after months of training and resistance, I've decided that I can't keep my pledge. I'll be emailing HR in a moment to tell them.

It's not that I'm throwing in the towel on better life habits. But when there's an institutional expectation, I live with more guilt than I care to. I need to get my own institution in order rather than bullying myself with another. I know I'll keep training--the half-marathon is next weekend. And I know I'll continue to struggle with not smoking. I say "not smoking" rather than "smoking" because I'm still on the "not" track, but I need to go at my own pace.