First off, reading gossip blogs is not like ‘my thing’. But at night, sometimes, when I don’t have much standing between myself and sleep, I’ll read them. Too much. This has a literal side effect. If I read a gossip blog too much at night before bed, I can’t fall asleep because my mind is racing. I suppose from scanning so many articles, and moving from story to story so quickly, my mind is all high strung. And as I begin to drift to sleep I picture celebrity things, as in like either I am a celebrity or I’m reporting on celebrities. And everything is so fast and invasive. It’ terrible! It makes it so I stay up too long and then it makes my sleep very restless as I continually wake up.
My throat is hurting today. My announcement was that I am quitting smoking. Friday I had 2. Saturday I had 1. Sunday I had 1. Yesterday I was going to have zero, but then I smoked some. Terrible idea. So today I will have zero then. Whats the difference this time? Well my bronchitis is probably directly, or at the least indirectly, related to smoking. No doubt it was simmering in me and smoking made it worse. I just hit a point where I feel I’m done. I’m ready to be smoke free. Why have I been smoking then? To curb the cravings for the first few days. But now I”m done. No more, especially since I had a few last night. Its very freeing. Driving without a cigarette isn’t as hard as I expected. Instead I love it. When I smoked, I would not even want a cigarette at times, but would smoke it anyway just because it was there. I’d smoke and smoke and smoke until I didn’t feel well. Smoking was no longer a choice. I was in complete bondage to it. I’m ready to break free from it.
Also, God is calling me to change. This is one thing he wanted me to change. So initially I started thinking about it because of God, and I started cutting back on Friday. Then I got sick and the whole concept was reinforced. I’m not really having any serious cravings. The one cigarette a day is probably helping with that. And if I am sweaty or feeling ill from it, I don’t realize because I’m sweaty and ill already. I haven’t freaked out at all though, because I wont let myself. I see that as my one big mistake the other times I’ve tried to quit.
Quitting is not just the absence of a cigarette from your lips. It’s incredibly mental. When I begin to feel flustered, I tell myself “Calm down.” Otherwise, I would get flustered, and then upon realizing I couldn’t have the one thing I’ve leaned on for the past 3 years every time I felt frustrated, would wile out. I have cried, pouted, begged- and most commonly, given in and bought cigarettes. But this time I realize that I am going to be frustrated and flustered in life. Cigarettes never made everything better, they just relaxed me. I need to learn to relax using other methods.
Not to mention the benefits of saving money, not dieing, not smelling, and my car not being disgusting, my mom not being on my case anymore and realizing that I have the strength and willpower to do it when I for so long thought I couldn’t. I’ve been waiting for the day I was going to quit, and this is it. Reaaaaaallly! And why? Because I’m not being forced to and I don’t feel trapped- this is what I want to do. And thank you God for helping me. I couldn’t do this without you. I’ve prayed for years that you would just really help me quit. You are really really helping! It’s great, and so much easier than if I were to do it on my own.
I’m sick as anything still. I shouldnt have gone out last night. But I was smart enough not to drink. I was thinking of getting a doctors note for class today, but I should really just go.
