those awful chemicals

I do not want to give up this blog entirely. It matters a lot to me that you are reading, yes, you, whoever and wherever you are. I want to keep this store open as a place where I can come and be utterly naked, talk about frustration with real aspects of my life without worry that my life will visit and read it and be offended.

But I want to make a go of it non-anonymously. I think I’m ready to have a lot to say over there.

If you want the blog address, let me know (crisitunityblog [at] gmail [dot] com). Cody, lurkers, this means you. In the meantime, I’ll tell you some other things.

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Yesterday I got some very difficult news, kind of clawing-at-the-mud-on-the-side-of-the-hole news. Instead of crawling into a vodka bottle at home, I stuck with my plans to go to a yoga class I’m subbing for in a couple of weeks. Before I went in, though, as I sat in my car for the half-hour I had between arriving and the start time, this one thing loomed large in my mind: the five-year-old half-pack of clove cigarettes that’s been in my glove compartment since I gave up smoking for good when I was 25. (FTR, these have actually been banned for sale in the US in the time between when I put them in my glove compartment and now. One of the areas in which Mr. Obama and I flat-out disagree.)

I miss it horribly. Lately I’ve been missing it every day. The cravings for it – although largely emotional in nature – are as bad as they ever were when I had a dose of nicotine in my circulatory system.

I went to yoga instead, and had a very nice time, and actually did a not-terrible partial scorpion pose (!), for which I am paying with sore back muscles today. I plan to go again next week. When I got back in my car I still wanted a cigarette more than I wanted to eat or sleep or go on living.

So I smoked one.

And I’d hoped that it would be so rotten and stale and toxic that I’d be free of my cravings, that smoking again after this many years would be foreign and yucky. This did not happen. It was awesome. Perfect. Totally do not regret it. Wish with all my heart that I could take it up again.

When I got home, I ate dinner and watched the defeat of Sauron’s army and then stayed up far too late writing an essay about the smoking experience. I pulled out every stop I had, told some of my most painful stories, and I am really, really proud of the result. I’m going to send it to The Sun.

I slept very poorly when I finally got to bed. Today I feel hot-cold from so little sleep and those awful chemicals my body has to compensate for, and my head feels stuffed and wide; I’m worried this is the beginning of a migraine. Last night I laid awake, praying, asking for clearer signposts about what I should do. I wonder if maybe the lack of signposts is actually clarity, telling me that I have to make my own way without guidance. I really don’t know how. I feel bereft and angry and inexpert.

I am trying to think of Sugar: You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. But it’s just forming a lump in my throat instead of motivating me.

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Today is my ex’s 35th birthday. Tomorrow is my 30th.