The Blame Game

Great…. Chantix, Quit-Smoking Drug, Poses Heart Risks (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/stop-smoking-drug-chantix-heart_n_878341.html )

So what right?  Except that I am currently on Chantix.  It’s the only thing I have ever tried that has actually worked for me.  And, it’s my second time taking it.

If you have ever tried to quit smoking, even once, you may have learned that it is easier said than done. Being different from doing anything else in life, smoking is something that is easy to start and hard to stop. That is the common characteristics of all addictions. It is undeniable that smoking is an addiction, and breaking off from an addiction is really hard.

OK, I take that back, quitting is actually very easy. I can stop for one day or two, which is not hard at all.  I succeeded in quitting for weeks once.  When I was pregnant with my daughter, I quit for eleven months.  The hard part is to not turn back. Only when you can do that can you say that you have quit smoking for good.  I have been smoking for twenty-eight years.  It’s way past the time to quit for good.

I try hard to be the most polite smoker in the world. I would never smoke in someone else’s home, or car, or in a non-smoking designated area.  I won’t smoke around children; I won’t even smoke in my own house (the one I pay the mortgage on).

Now I could run through the list of why I started to smoke, why each time I gave it up I picked it up again and so on and so forth but it’s really irrelevant isn’t it?  The bottom line is I did and this time I’m determined, more so than those other times, to put them down for good.

So I chose Chantix because when you first start it, you can continue to smoke – which absolutely appeals to a smoker of 28 years.  As the days go on and the dosage increases however, the desire to smoke starts to lessen considerably.  Around day ten or eleven, the cigarettes begin to taste really bad – doesn’t matter what brand (I tried buying others last time I did this), they start to taste like maybe a stick you’d pick up out of the yard.  Add a few more days, add a little dog shit or bear shit to that stick. Yuck.  The desire to smoke dog or bear shit?  Zero.

Now some of my readers know I am on vacation right now.  You’re probably wondering why I would choose to do this on vacation.  Well, Chantix also can give you insomnia and it definitely gives you very, VERY vivid and strange dreams.  I’ve never taken LSD or any other form of hallucinogenic but I’d have to guess that some of the dreams I’ve been having this past week would rival any ‘trip’ I’ve ever heard about.   So to me, it made perfect sense to do this while on vacation.  If I’m up half the night and tired during the day, I have no agenda, nowhere I need to be, nothing I have to do.  Hello nap.  There have been a lot of naps this vacation.  And there have been a lot less cigarettes this vacation.

When I do reach the end and when I DO quit for good (that’s assuming I don’t have a heart attack first according to the article), I vow not to be one of those reformed smokers that pounces all over every smoker I come in contact with – that’s assuming you are the polite smoker that I am of course.  Smokers are bullied.  They are bullied socially, medically and legislatively.  Here’s an example of the blame game I refer to in my title:

When a smoker gets cancer, people shrug and say “what did you expect?”  Just like when overweight people get diabetes they say the same thing.   It’s the Blame Game.  Blame the sick for causing the disease.  People behave as if smokers deserve cancer. Overweight people deserve diabetes. 

I am not denying that smoking is a cause of cancer. That does not mean smokers deserve cancer.  I am not denying that obesity is a cause of Type 2 diabetes. That does not mean overweight people deserve diabetes.  Do you see what I’m saying, what I’m getting at?  And here’s a newsflash – I have diabetes and I am not over weight – not by any stretch of the imagination.  I’m in the dead center in the weight category for my height and age, just ask my doctor.  

We all have shortcomings, we all have areas of our lives that need improvement, we all have some ‘vice’ or addiction – some are just not as easy to kick or control.  I’m trying to quit smoking.  Maybe you’re trying to get more exercise or maybe you’re trying to keep your home tidier, do more laundry more often.  Maybe you’re trying to conquer a fear of heights or spiders.  We are all just about always ‘trying’ to do something aren’t we?  Maybe you too are trying to quit smoking?

Take heart my friend if you are, I know what you’re up against.  

Oh, and if I try to bum a cigarette off you, don’t blame me for wanting it and asking, just kindly tell me no.

The Beach

With all the snow this past winter in New England, I sometimes felt as if summer and my beach time would never arrive… but it finally has.  I am sitting here in Pompano Beach, Florida in what has to be one of the hottest June’s in recent years, toes in the sand, drink at my side and trusty laptop on my lap.

I have been here completely alone for three days and a wonderful three days it has been; Very good for clearing the mind, re-energizing the spirit and personal reflection.  Yesterday, I sat in the warm Atlantic Ocean, just floating until my body grew completely limp with relaxation; until my mind grew silent with inactivity.  Yesterday, I rented a beach chair and umbrella and basked in the sun.  Now however, I have taken my beach blanket, shook out the wrinkles and have laid it on the sand.  I plan to sit here for a long time.  I want to watch the sky turn from light blue to pale yellow and pink and then orange.  I want to watch the day fade to evening and watch the moon crest over the ocean.

The ocean.  The ocean churns restlessly, white foam on the shore. The air is crisp and warm, the wind light and caressing.  I sink my feet into the still warm sand and look out to endless ocean. 

I settle deeper into the sand.  

Eyes open then closing again so I can use my other senses to inhale the scent of coconut and aloe from the sunscreens and lotions used throughout the day; hear the surf as it laps the shore; taste the salt on my lips from the ocean spray, feel the sand growing cool as the day slips away.

There is no one I need to be, no one that places demands on me or wants me to be any way, anyone or anywhere.  

Scanning the shore I see many sea shells that have been washed up.  Earlier this week I went snorkeling for them and found several that I found beautiful and gave them to my friend to take home to her grandson (who incidentally asked she bring him home a shell from the beach).  What a wonderful conversation we had about our God and our purpose while she was here.   There are not many people I could have a conversation about God with and feel comfortable having such conversation…

Do you ever wish you (when I say you, I mean me) could grow a sea shell around you to protect you from the elements and from everything and everyone out there looking to devour you?  That is the thought that currently comes to mind after several thoughtful and thoughtless conversations today.

But if we/I did grow a shell, it would likely be like the ones I went snorkeling for and found.  Whole.  Intact.  Unique.  Not necessarily pretty, but not broken like most of the ones I see before me along the shore now.  These shells are useless at protection because they are missing most of their structure.  They are still beautiful in their own way…

I wonder… if we did have the ability to grow outer shells, would that be good or bad?  Have we not ourselves, been created to be in fellowship with one another?  Does the kind of sea creature that lived in the shells I collected earlier this week not need fellowship, friendship, relationships?  I wonder if the kind of sea creature that lived in some of these shells didn't need fellowship and even though we sometimes think we don't need fellowship either, we do.   I’m just sayin' that while I was alone on the beach, feeling content in the solitude, I was wholly aware of the need for humans to be in healthy relationships and wholly grateful to God for His design.  There were and are times that, if I could, I would have donned a shell.

The waves crash again and again. The sun is gone for the day. I wait now in quiet for that first star to appear and then another and then too many for me to count. The sky will be full of little lights - billions of little lights. The world is big. So huge and vast and full yet empty; So beautiful, yet ugly; So loud, yet so quiet.  I am nothing but a quiet observer, in a quiet moment, fleeting and forgetful. Here today, gone tomorrow.  It's all pretty insignificant really, yet at the same time, so very significant.

What will I do here today that will still be here tomorrow? And maybe that's part of the problem--all the trying rather than simply being, with the warm sand, the foaming waves, the billions of stars and something I can feel but will never see.

It has been a long, hot day in the sun, and it feels nice to finally let it end.  For now, I am content to simply enjoy my evening here, alone on the beach.

Have a thought?  86 the bullshit and let me have them.  Talk to me...

Father's Day

So it’s Father’s Day… I’ve been absent from my blog here for over a month – so much for all that smoke eh?  I’m sure I’ll get back to it, after all, it’s still swirling around up there in my cranium somewhere, but as it is for all of us at one time or another, ‘life’ and responsibilities get in the way of what we’d really like to be doing (or in my case, writing).  Shit happens and life gets in the way.  But I digress, back to the subject at hand:  Father’s Day.  

I wonder if anyone else finds it as strange as I do that this day does not have the “emotional charge” if you will, that Mother’s Day has.  To me, it’s an almost casual day – an ‘I-almost-forgot’ day when good ‘ol dad gets a goofy card or another necktie.  There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of emotional intensity (positive or negative) that plays out.  It just “is what it is”.  

For those of us who grew up with and knew our fathers it may be a little different; a slightly more ‘I-appreciate-you-and-all-that-you-did-for-me’, ‘thanks-for-being-there-and-supporting-me’, if not an ‘i-love-you-dad’ kind of day.  To those fathers, father-figures and step-fathers; the ones who read to, help with homework, toss a ball around, check for monsters under the bed, make you eat your vegetables, “Of course I’ll be at your ball game/dance recital”, “I’m so proud of you!” types - a resounding “Happy Father’s Day!”  

For those of us who did not grow up with their father or a father figure (I fall into this category), the day marks a sometimes painful reminder that my father had no attachment to me.  No sense of personal responsibility, emotional care or concern.  For some, perhaps our fathers were taken from us by an untimely death.  Either way, we grew up without them.

Sadly, having a physically or emotionally absent father has become somewhat common in our society.  Having established a somewhat recent relationship with my biological father, I realize he probably, for lack of a better phrase, ‘loved me in his own way’ but again, from a distance and without contact.  

With these thoughts in mind, I decided to pick up President Obama’s book Dreams of my Father.  Now whether you support President Obama or not, whether you agree or disagree with his politics/policies, health care reform etc., you must agree that here is a person who grew up without his father and quite obviously made something of himself and his life - and he did it without Dear Old Dad.

Yesterday, President Obama said during his weekly internet address when asked about Father’s Day, “I felt his absence, and I wonder what my life would have been like had he been a greater presence.”  Well, that just about sums it up now doesn’t it?  I couldn’t have said it better myself even though I have spent most of my life wondering the same damn thing.

President Obama writes in his book that “..Every man is trying to live up to his father’s expectation or make up for his father’s mistakes.”  He goes on to say that “…I suppose that may explain my particular malady as well as anything else.”  I highlighted these two phrases in the book.  Why?  Because although he didn’t have many ‘real’ interactions with his father to build from; these statements, in my opinion, are about his own quest and his own self-reflection.  

Speaking of self-reflection, which side of the equation do I fall on?  Quite obviously, I am living to make up for his (my father’s) mistakes.  Have I done a good job?  It all depends on how you look at it and the only opinion which matters to me is that of my daughter.  

Will she call me today to wish me a ‘Happy Father’s Day’?  Heck no – she also re-established a relationship with her (often absent) father some time back and I’m certain he will be the one getting the telephone call, not me.  As such, I will be calling my biological father, if not to say “Happy Father’s Day, Dad” to say hello, how are you, I was thinking of you today…

86 The Bullshit and tell me your thoughts on Father’s Day as I’ve told you mine… talk to me…