Smoking for Spite and Mental Wellness

Oh I know exactly what I am... Among other things I am a filthy smoker, and not just that, I'm a bloody re-start. After 3 years of thinking about smoking every freaking day, I started again. Man, it was AWESOME. I don't really suffer any illusions that it makes me look cool, eat less, lowers my (already perfect) blood pressure- What it does for me is offer an escape from the mayhem and chaos inside my house. I can step outside for 5 minutes and not be followed. I can shut the door and light up and take deep calming breaths and flood my veins with precious nicotine and for just a minute or two, I feel free. Yes, I'm quite aware there's no freedom to be had while you're chained to a cigarette, that's not what I'm looking to escape. I spend nearly every moment of my life looking to the needs of others; my husband, my child, all the other husbands (snort) and all the other children, the housework, the phone... 3 to 5 minutes, 10 times a day- that's not even an hour of "me time", and I don't think it's so much to ask. Yet the demands are always there, just on the other side of that door. Just on the other side of that selfish, masochistic moment, there is my life.

The last time I quit, was about the same time Mr Man announced that he didn't believe I would ever quit smoking, and he supposed he would just have to get used to it. The nagging stopped, the snide remarks faded away, and finally, he stopped pestering me about it. It was bliss. And as the spotlight faded on my flaws, so did my desire to smoke. It just got more and more unpleasant and one day I stopped. Just like that. Cooooold Turkey baby.

But now... Now, it seems that every single move I make is up for discussion, every unsolicited opinion- my life is totally wide-fucking-open. That's not to say I don't care what some people think, but my core motto is in fact "you can either agree with me, or be wrong" (thanks Em :) ), and that makes some of the conversations I have, well, rather difficult. SO- I smoke because I feel like it, I smoke because I can, and I smoke because it serves to alienate me from some people, and the ones who matter, they love me anyway. Yep, if you're going to do something bad, do it for a good reason- I smoke for spite.

So long as I've got two of these....

I should say that my mother's second husband "did the best he could"... but I'm pretty sure that would be an outright lie. He was (is) a total pig. He also totally embraced this... notion of anti-feminism that saved me from quite a lot of hard physical work. This worked out fairly well for me when the lawn needed cut in the summer, or when our 8 Japanese maple trees dropped 140 bags of wet, sticky leaves in the fall... wood to cut in the winter and snow to shovel, and on and on the list would go of undesirable dirty work. As long as I stayed content and uncomplaining in the kitchen where I belonged, I was safe from the backbreaking "manly" work. I was totally fine with that.

He and my mother owned a garage. I would go in to work on Saturdays and help Mom with the paperwork, clean the office, and run the errands. Occasionally I would venture into the back, and satisfy my curiosity. I learned how to scrape gaskets from parts, use the airline to pump the used oil from the oil change barrel, decipher the year/make/model from the sticker in the driver side door. Eventually I could operate the tire machine somewhat safely and do basic stuff like oil changes and tire rotations. But I could always say no if asked to do any of it, as long as I got my butt back into the office and did the "girl stuff".

One day, he was standing around in the shop drinking beer with his buddies and I came in on them having a discussion. He told them "Now Hubba here, she can do all sorts of stuff- can't you honey?" he looked at me, then he gestured rudely at my chest and said "But as long as you've got two of those, you'll never have to worry about any of that".

I looked down at my chest, and back up at the laughing men and all I could think to say was "I'll never have to worry, but you, you will have to worry". I'm sure the menacing effect was totally ruined by my burning cheeks and the fog of beer they watched me through- But I'm sure I saw him falter for just a moment. I'm sure for just a second, he wondered whether he had taught me a little too well.