Confession: I Miss Smoking

I know, I know, I know. Peter Jennings, Dana Reeves, Nora Reardon (one of my parents' friends and a non-smoker who died from 'the lung cancer' last week). Lung cancer is the leading cause of death for both men and women. In 2005, about 163,510 people will die of this disease. Smoking causes more than 8 out of 10 cases of lung cancer. Yet tonight when I was finishing up work, I really felt like a cigarette. It's been more than three years since I've lit up but I was thinking our well-ventilated, screened-in patio downstairs would be the perfect location to have one. Instead of indulging, I decided to blog a confession (I didn't have any cigarettes handy)

I MISS SMOKING!!!

I know I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm supposed to turn into one of those sanctimonious anti-smoking Nazis who tsks-tsks all those who take nicotine. You know the kind -- the hypocrites who closet their own bad habits but self-righteously judge others'. Boo. Booo. Boooo.

I don't think I miss smoking as much I miss the camaraderie of smoking. I miss that low-key intimacy among friends who 'got it' when we were first ushered, then ostracized, from civilized society. Don't get me wrong -- I'm happy to return from a dinner downtown without the additional death threat of secondhand smoke (or my hair infused with the stench of it). But, I must admit there was nothing like sitting outside at a sidewalk cafe in the summer with a cigarette and a coffee (or a martini); the sense of peace and calmness coursing through my veins. It's a feeling that the dispassionate and those whose pulses never race could ever understand. I have a feeling that Caroline has the emotion and racing pulse of her mom. That said, my own self destruction has been put on hold indefinitely.