Goodbye

o

Promise

I am making the promise to myself today that I will keep my lungs clear from all substances that are in cigarettes. I vow to never put a cigarette to my lips ever again. I promise to be able to breathe deeply whenever I want without coughing. I vow to jog without gasping for air as if I was drowning. I promise to have a real goodbye; to have closure, and here it is.

Goodbye

How does a person say goodbye to something they have been doing for nearly half of their life? It’s like saying goodbye to eating or breathing. But it’s not a necessary evil, in all its addictive traits; I have enjoyed the years that I have spent smoking. Now it is time to say goodbye.

Ø Goodbye to sneaking cigarettes as soon as my mom left me home alone in eighth grade. Sitting on the steps going downstairs outside, listening for the garage door.
Ø Goodbye to smoking at the dentist’s office, across the street from my middle school.
Ø Goodbye to missing the bus, just to walk home with Katie, smoking Marlboro Reds.
Ø Goodbye to smoking in the bathroom at lunchtime, with code words and sayings, whenever the walking counselor or teacher would come in. She wouldn’t catch us most of the time, but she would hear several of us ask in unison; “do you have a tampon/chapstick/toiletpaper?”
Ø Goodbye to blowing the smoke against the bathroom stall so that the smoke wouldn’t form a cloud over my head.
Ø Goodbye to smoking halfway out my friend Amber’s window, just in case her Mimi (g-ma) decided to barge in her bedroom.
Ø Goodbye to smoking after school behind the big bushes along the perimeter fence. Having to jump the fence to avoid getting caught, and ripping the back of my pants.
Ø Goodbye to cramming for an exam, staying up all night hyped up on caffeine and chain smoking.
Ø Goodbye to smoking with a beer.
Ø Goodbye to begging my old bosses for a cigarette break after the lunch rush.
Ø Goodbye to writing endless prose of poetry with great meaning and feeling with an ashtray containing two still-burning cigarettes.
Ø Goodbye to being so much of a fiend that while a cigarette is sitting in the ashtray, I light another because I had already forgot about it.
Ø Goodbye to getting caught smoking, when I was 13, at 11:00pm in the closet of my bedroom because the smoke detector went off.
Ø Goodbye to mornings that I could tell my lungs were black, from a night of smoking a whole pack
Ø Goodbye to getting frost bite in 10 degree weather, if but only for a few drags.
Ø Goodbye to feeling as though I can never take a deep breathe.
Ø Goodbye to sitting in the smoking sections at restaurants.
Ø Goodbye to always lighting a cigarette as soon as I sit in my car.
Ø Goodbye to having a cigarette after sex.
Ø Goodbye to a cigarette after I get out of the shower.
Ø Goodbye to sitting outside on my new porch and poisoning myself with all of the toxins in cigarettes.
Ø Goodbye to having flicking cigarette contests.
Ø Goodbye to smoking at Crestwood Mall and getting harassed by security to show them our ID’s when we were only 14.
Ø Goodbye to finding notes in my packs of cigarettes from my mom, showing concern that I’m still smoking at the age of15.
Ø Goodbye to all of the crap that I cough up in the mornings.
Ø Goodbye to my friends bumming cigarettes off of me.
Ø Goodbye to chatting to random smokers outside of various places, having some of the most random conversations.
Ø Goodbye to lighting up after a big meal. (I miss this terribly)
Ø Goodbye to burning myself in the arm every time I don’t pay attention after I light up.
Ø Goodbye to accidentally singeing my hair with a Zippo.
Ø Goodbye to flicking a cigarette out of the window, having it fly back in and almost catch my Civic on fire.
Ø Goodbye to burning furniture.
Ø Goodbye to ashes that go everywhere.
Ø Goodbye to the lingering smell of smoke that I still can’t seem to get rid off, even on the third day. (not even Febreeze can get rid of it)
Ø Goodbye to holding an umbrella with a handful of things and still managing to smoke.
Ø Goodbye to smoke in the eyes.
Ø Goodbye to trying to light a cigarette on the windiest of days with the cheapest lighter I can find.
Ø Goodbye to running into Eat-Rite Diner, throwing quarters in the machine and buying cigarettes; and running out before they could turn of the machine, at the age of 15.
Ø Goodbye to standing outside of the Amoco with my friends, trying to get someone to buy us cigarettes when we were 16 (When they first decided to change the carding laws).
Ø Goodbye to my fingers always smelling like an ashtray.
Ø Goodbye to lighting up a cigarette when someone else does.
Ø Goodbye to waking up in the middle of the night, craving a cigarette and smoking one.
Ø Goodbye to being able to smoke whenever I wanted to at this job.
Ø Goodbye to throwing away $1,277.50 a year on smoking.
Ø Goodbye to throwing away minutes, hours, days, weeks, even years off of my life because of an addiction.


Ø Goodbye to you, oh nicotine, with so many memories, sealed with the promise of inevitable cancer and eventually death. Bad breath, smelly clothes, making food taste as flavorful as cardboard with a rice cake on top.


Ø Goodbye to the assumption that I would never even try to quit.