jezebel.

I've been smoking more than I've been eating lately.

I want to quit, I think about quitting every night. I consider that it'd be easier to quit now, after only three months of casually smoking and two weeks of going half-a-pack to a pack a day, than trying to quit after a year or more. I consider that it's going to destroy my teeth, give me heart disease, destroy my lungs. Smoking will kill me, in essence.

So why do I smoke? This is an interesting quibble I've been dealing with ever since I started. Is it because I'm stressed out about school, life, the universe, and everything? No, I've been able to cope with that for awhile. Is it because I want to be more socially acceptable? No, I will never be socially acceptable except to a handful of people.

Then why do I smoke? Because I want to. I want to experience slow death. I want to experience all the worries. I want to see the world through the haze of the thin line of smoke rising from a burning end. If I didn't want to smoke, I wouldn't have started. If I didn't want to smoke, I wouldn't be smoking. It's that simple, I think.

I remember, about a year ago, I thought about picking it up, without anybody coaxing me into it, and of my own accord. I wanted something to make me feel better, the medication no longer working. But my mom talked me out of it.

So what then am I supposed to do with a terrible habit I wanted in the first place?

Quit, I guess. That would be the most logical thing to do.

The irony in all of this, though, comes from what I was reading in my psychology text book. A lot of the things they suggest to do instead of smoking-- like changing your patterns to avoid situations that encourage it, and to do something else instead--are eerily similar to the things I've been told by pastors about how to quit masturbating. They tell a congregation of young men to not get into situations that allow for you to masturbate, as if we don't go to bed at night.

But smoking is different in the way that it can be avoided, if I just leave them at home or simply throw them away. Think about my black lungs. Think about my poor teeth.

But, see, here's the rub: I have a problem with myself drinking or smoking pot or doing drugs because I see a moralistic problem with it, whereas with smoking, I see no moral problem. I see no grand retribution for it. It's not a sin. I'm not gonna go to hell because I smoke a pack a day.

And far too much of my perception of smoking is focused away from the obvious biological effects, and towards the non-effects it has on my soul. Smoking doesn't give you soul disease or soul cancer. It doesn't hinder you from self-awareness or seeking Christ. It just kills you.

But maybe it does disease my soul... maybe because of smoking, I won't be that girl, because she'll be appalled by my habit. If that's the case, though, then religion itself by narrowing the field of dating prospects down to one religion and one belief. Hmph.

It all seems to be one big clusterfuck. I should quit, there have been points whilst writing that this that I have resolved to quit, but, now I am just unsure. I pray that I make the right decision, whether to opt-out or commit. We'll see.