Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Two years, two months, two weeks

That is about how long it has been since my last cigarette.  It was the waning days of 2007, a cold rainy December afternoon in Northern Maryland.  A stressful moment, and a quick hunt in a coat I had not worn in a while yielded an old pack; it had been 2 weeks since the one before that and I remember coughing. 

The battle has been decades long, filled with false starts, false stops, and false hopes.  That specific time I had been over a year on Nicoderm patches . . . and still sneaking a few smokes most days.  Not the healthiest of endeavors.  By the time I got back from Maryland I knew it was finally my time.  I peeled off the last patch and said goodbye to the friend that had been with me since age 15, a friend that was always there, always ready to console, a most deadly friend.

I will carry reminders of that for the rest of my life, my lungs especially, poor things.  One outwardly obvious result of quitting is a 25 pound bouncing nicotine baby in a brand spanking new gut.  A few months ago I started using fatsecret.com, a free "all things food and diet" site that helps me count calories (or weight watcher points), monitor trends, and set goals.  Between that and time at the gym the past couple months, the tide seems to be turning.  I hope I did not wait too long to quit.