#quitter

I decided at 11:50 p.m. on June 28, 2025, that I had smoked my last cigarette. This wasn’t an “I’d like to quit” attempt so much as it was something in me that clicked and decided I was finished. The first few weeks were a challenge. I did have some intense cravings, and dreams of smoking so vivid that I woke up feeling disappointed that I had failed (yet again) when in reality I hadn’t.

Quitting is never going to be without its challenges. I just have to keep finding ways to ignore them. I won’t say I’ll never smoke again, but I will say with confidence that I’ll always do my best trying not to.

To anyone on the struggle bus, try the Smoke Free app. They have a support group now with members at various stages of their quit. They were very helpful to me in the early months of my journey. It’s a great community. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s worth it.

softening the sharp edges of my tongue, disciplining my hands the patience they never learned, because love, when it looks like you, makes even a storm ashamed of its thunder. I would fight my biting, violent nature for you, wrestling the wolves that pace inside my ribs, holding their teeth between my hands until they remember how to rest. For you, I would practice gentleness like a prayer spoken by someone who was never taught to pray. And when I fail— when anger rises like a bruise beneath the skin— I bow my head to the quiet truth of you, ashamed that I am still unfinished, ashamed that the world carved its roughness into me before I ever learned your name. Perhaps that is the illness in me: to long, sometimes, to be broken enough —not knowing that the wish for sickness is already a quiet fever of the soul.