I went to Chicago last weekend with Nate. We quit smoking together while we were there, gradually weaning ourselves of the cigarettes. I haven't smoked since Tuesday and then I only had half a cigarette. I spent Wednesday and Thursday warding off cravings with gum and I spent Friday with a sore jaw.
I cried once on Thursday night when I was drafting my Fulbright proposal. I couldn't get more than two sentences out and cigarettes are a quick fix for my writer's block. Today I cried again, after I'd spent four hours straight writing another draft and my mother had found tons of mistakes and pointed out that my opening paragraph needed to be re-written (the very paragraph that blocked me into tears on Thursday.)
A couple of my friends call Nate a Sunshine Boy. This means that he is happy--almost never sad. He is enthusiastic and fun, gorgeous and kind and, yep, bery very happy. This compliments my instability and tendency to dip to emotional lows pretty well. But he can't understand why its much harder for me to quit smoking than it is for him. I get frustrated with a paragraph and, without a cigarette, put my head down and try to collect my thoughts. But my thoughts don't collect, they bleed into harsher thoughts and I can't get them to stop, so soon I'm no longer dripping tears of writer's block frustration, but sobbing tears of anguish at what a difficult person I am, at how I am a walking nightmare to anyone who wants to get close to me, at why and how I possibly could have ended up this way.
I told myself that I can sort my thoughts through another means than smoking. Like, playing the guitar and maybe writing a song. ENNNNGH. No. It doesn't work. I still feel like crying and if I start I can't stop. Crying leaves me feeling exhausted and helpless. Smoking leaves me feeling stable and perhaps indifferent. Is this what anti-depressants do?
My parents are downstairs avoiding me like the plague. "Nora's crying, let's get the helloutta here!" My boyfriend and Lisa are going to be here soon, and I'm afraid that when they see my mood they are going to want to run, too.
Anyway, I quit smoking. Aren't you proud?
(I'll write again when I'm feeling more positive... Sorry people.)
