Rebel Without a Clue

Believe it or not, I’ve always been rebellious in nature. I may have toed the line when it mattered – at school I was known as something of a good girl/brown-noser. One year I won the conduct award all four quarters. On one occasion, my entire class got detention except for me. Yes, I was a geek, I also knew that my parents wouldn’t tolerate bad behavior.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found ways to rebel, most of them not very smart. I went through a period in the late 90s where I refused to wear a seat belt (yeah, Mom, I did). I have 8 tattoos, and my nose is pierced. Not necessarily a good career move for me since my profession is in the corporate world.

The way I am least proud of rebelling is by smoking. I’m proud to say that I kicked the habit about 5 years ago, with a few slip-ups here and there. I started smoking in high school. I was way too geeky to smoke in the girls room – I knew I would get caught thus marring my “good girl” reputation. I smoked the minute I got out of school. I worked in two offices where the whole place was a smoking section–no going out onto the stairwell for these guys. When I started driving I puffed away on my drive to and from work, making sure to toss the buts since it was my parents car and I didn’t want them to know. The more recriminations I got when I bought my pack of Virginia Slims Ultra Light Menthol, the more I wanted to be known as a smoker.

One day I made a point of heavily smoking was the day of the Great American Smokeout – I would be damned if someone was going to tell me what to do. Clearly I’m not the brightest bulb. It wasn’t that I was against other people quitting, I was against me quitting. I was going to make up for all of those years being the quiet little mouse, doing what I was told to do. I was going to smoke if it was the last thing I did, and having been diagnosed with asthma when I was 15, that was quite likely.

Back in the spring of 2003 I got a bad upper-respiratory infection. Just the thought of a cigarette made cough. Lord knows I tried; I'd take out a ciggie, whip out my lighter, and hack away like a patient in a TB ward. So, Virginia Slim and I took a break. In my in mind, we weren’t breaking up, we were on a break.

Then I started exercising, and I decided to see how I did without the smoking. I hadn’t quit – I still had a pack in my purse, still had a lighter in the side pocket. We were still on a break.

It’s been five years. I’ve started saying I’ve quit. I do slip up – when I was stressed out at my last job, I stepped outside a sucked on that cigarette as if my life depended on it. Back in October in the aftermath of Accident #2, I bummed a cigarette off of my father.

I think like any addition, I’ll always want a cigarette. I’m not sure that I’ll ever fully kick the craving. I actually like the smell of second hand smoke. That has got to be a first. But Virginia Slim, I’m sorry to say it’s not you, it’s me. We’re no longer on a break, we’ve broken up.