If there is one thing to know about me, it is that I keep my promises. In February I announced to the world that, after five long years, I would be quitting vaping. It is now May and I have not vaped once since then.
I have, however, smoked some cigarettes. How many? A handful. Dozens, perhaps. Fine, definitely over a hundred. Maybe some way into the hundreds.
Should you need to know another thing about me, it is this: I am good at winning on a technicality. Well, you could also call it lying by omission, but that’s beside the point.
I took up vaping because I loved smoking too much and I knew that smoking would eventually kill me. I quit vaping because it did exactly what it had promised to do: it was less fun than cigarettes. No one looks chic sucking on what looks like an ink cartridge, or a USB stick.
I left my e-cigarette behind a few months ago and at first it was fine, by which I mean that it was hell, because I’d been inhaling nicotine in one way or another for nearly 20 years, but bearable because I didn’t miss vaping. I’d always resented it.
I went to New York and the friend I was staying with was a smoker, and I thought she could be a convenient excuse to do what I’d wanted to do anyway. On my first morning over the pond, I left the flat, bought breakfast, then bought some tabs.
This was seven weeks ago: at time of writing, my last cigarette was smoked… well I wouldn’t want to go into too much detail, but we can say it was recently. Within the last hour, even. That doesn’t really matter.
What does is that I have spent the past seven weeks trapped in an endless cycle of guilt and defiance, at times mortified that I’ve picked up something again after successfully ditching it years ago, and at others purposely sucking on my cancer sticks, because what the hell, right?
I know I have to quit again soon and yet I find myself resenting it. You see, I just really enjoy smoking. I like having a morning cigarette with my coffee on the balcony, and I like returning to that same balcony in the evening, just before going to bed. I like going for a walk around the block when I can’t write, and shamelessly chain-smoking while out with friends.
I never quite understood why former drinkers who’d not had a drop in decades still described themselves as alcoholics, but I see it now. I am, and will always be, a smoker. I’m great at it! If there were awards for smoking, I’d definitely win some of them.
Mostly, though, I have seemingly picked the worst time in my life to get rid of one my life’s greatest pleasures. Your thirties are the time when suddenly you feel the need to eat better and sleep better and drink less and eat more vegetables, and make sure that your flat is always clean and tidy and you change your bedsheets often enough.
It’s not a fun age, because you’ve been slapped in the face with adulthood and are now too old to blame sheer youth for your mistakes, but not quite old enough not to want to act like an idiot. There’s a push and pull motion in my chest that rarely rests, and never quite knows if it wants me to become an old fogey or remain Peter Pan.
Smoking again has brought me one step closer to Neverland, and I can’t help but enjoy the view. I’ll leave it again soon – everyone has to – but I’m not sure I want to rush it. In fact, I’m not sure I can. There are steps in life you should only take when you’re ready, and I think I need to stay here a little while longer. The real world can wait.
