Fear

I am swinging, these days, between fears.

On the one hand, there is the fear that I will keep smoking. The fear that I will spend my life feeling de-energised, living that half-life of the smoker that stops me from exercising, eating well, and working with freedom and productivity. I fear never being free of the endless, draining slavery of it, and I fear the consequences to my health - of contracting a dreadful illness, and knowing I caused it, and I didn't do anything to prevent it.

On the other hand is the fear of giving up smoking.

Only I'm not entirely sure what that fear is. Especially when I've given up before, and I know it doesn't hurt, and that life goes on, and that in fact - it's more than life going on; it's life being better. And it's only once I put nicotine into my body again that the slippery slope begins - the questioning, the craving.

I guess I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of forgetting how it makes me feel and falling back into the trap again. I'm afraid I'll never be free from it. I'm afraid that life will never be the same again; that I'll never be able to enjoy myself, that I'll always be craving a cigarette and fighting this endless battle of wills with myself until I finally succumb and have one, and I'll talk myself into believing it doesn't matter. Then the self-loathing, of course, of being weak as piss. And then continuing to feel like shit 24/7 for the rest of my life.

It's all absolutely illogical. Both of these fears are driven by my desire to not smoke. Logically, they're the same thing. Fear of feeling the way a smoker feels all the time.

When you're a non-smoker, you don't feel the daily desperation, the panics, the irrational need to get outside and have a puff right now. That's what a smoker feels, not a non-smoker. And the absence of that feeling, once you've quit - God, it's such a relief. Honestly, it is.

I must never allow myself to take that for granted when my sixty days is up.