On smoking.

I had my first cigarette when I was fourteen. But I didn't really start smoking until my freshman year of college. I was shy and it was an easy way to meet people. "I can stop whenever I want," I told myself, in my moronic eighteen-year-old fashion. I was wrong.

When I graduated from college, I decided to cut back, rationalizing that I would eventually quit. I went from a pack a day to about a half a pack a day, give or take, and than remained my cigarette intake for about two years (give or take).

Then, the summer prior to law school, I moved in with my parents for three months (something I swore I'd never do), worked out five days a week, lived on something nearly as absurd as nine hundred calories a day, and quit smoking. I didn't smoke for two months shy of two years. I currently smoke as few as two cigarettes a day and as much as eight cigarettes a day.

I decided on Thursday that I would quit on Monday. Someone in my office quit back in June (had a brief relapse, and I think re-quit) and did the patch thing. We heard a lot about it at the office -- heard about the quitting and about the patch and all that jazz. I know that for some people, it's easier to talk about it. But I don't wanna be that person. I'm not doing the patch or the gum or any of that stuff. I'm just stopping.

So like I said, I decided that I would quite on Monday. I had one (one!) cigarette yesterday. And since I'd not smoked today, I thought to myself, "Self, why bother smoking at all today? May as well quit a day early." I had two smokes left in my pack, so instead of throwing 'em out, I ran 'em under water and then threw 'em out. I knew if I didn't do that, I'd be the pathetic person taking them out of the trash.

And now? Now I wish I hadn't watered 'em down.