YOU Cannot Do That!!!

It’s funny – for all the times I bemoan the fact that I’ve never really done anything big in my life, that’s actually what I am the most proud of – the not doing something big.  And I’ve been not doing it for ten years this month. 

“YOU?!? Quit smoking???!?  My friends remarked, incredulous.  As if I’d confessed to zip-lining off a cliff.  They were stunned and disbelieving.  Not, me – the chain-smoker with the extra-long, ultra-thin, mentholated tobacco sticks between my lips any time my eyes were open.  

But I did.

Cold turkey.

Ten years ago this month.

I don’t share this revelation for applause or a hearty round of “good for yous.”  I’m writing this for the reader that maybe wants some hope that she can do (or not do) something big too.

I’m not going to say that smoking is the hardest habit in the world to quit, I’m only saying it was for me.  I don’t deny, minimize, or sugarcoat it; the entire process sucked when I stopped sucking.  I loved nicotine.  Cigarettes were even better than my “bankie” and I held on to that until college.

But “one days” come.  By not smoking for five minutes and then ten and then an hour – and then several and a day and a couple more – and three weeks and six months and a year – and day after day after that.  One day came.

I got a message on Facebook this week congratulating me on ten years of clean breathing.  It took me a moment to catch what that meant.

When I quit smoking February 5, 2002 I prayed that one day the thought of a cigarette would not occupy my every thought and consume my dreams. 

Blessedly, one day came.

It happened a few years ago.  Now, I’m not exactly certain my quit date was even the fifth.  I’d have to look up my quitting journal to be positive.  But it was the week before Valentines Day, that’s for sure, and it was 2002, of that I have no doubt.

If I can stop smoking, you can do anything.  You can not do something big in your life.

Truly.