God, I Want a Cigarette, Day 85-ish, The Me Project
I’m extremely stressed out this week, but I’m continuing to do the things that I know are good for me; drinking water, being honest about my needs with the people around me, seeking out sunlight and using my sunlamp, writing. This is all taping me more-or-less back together, so my mind is, probably, 40% less anxious than it would normally be right now if I were doing my previous coping rituals of eating, drinking, and whining.
This translates to snapping at my husband, but maybe a little less at my kids. I’m showing up for almost all the things that need to get done, but I’m jumpy and swearing a lot under my breath. And, damn, do I want a cigarette.
I’m GROUCHY about my body. I don’t want to be, but I am. When I stopped drinking and started (considering) eating less sugar (but never actually did), I assume the pounds would fall off and I would feel pain-free and light as a feather in no time. Instead, I’m stiff as a board and gaining, gaining, gaining the pounds. This makes me grouchy. So I’m tracking calories and intermittently fasting and actually exercising…..GROUCHY.
Also, the winter being the real shit-head that it is, means that we’re all stuck inside and making the house explode constantly. My daughter’s birthday season was extended over several weeks. GREAT for her, but for me, meant continually cleaning and reorganizing the house, prepping for guests, hosting, and generally having to be on in ways that make me GROUCHY.
Also, we’re trying to always figure out life and financial and business plans and make big-kid decision and it’s all very worrisome. That makes me GROUCHY, TOO.
What else? Earlier this week, the kids were off of school, which is happening again tomorrow (GROUCHY) and one kid broke his eyebrow open by walking into a wall with a blanket over his head (you know how you do) and required stitches, thus making the other kid ninety minutes late to a birthday party, from which I’m still recovering. THAT ALL MAKES ME VERY GROUCHY.
It’s all been chaos. I need so much time alone to be by myself on my own away from other people alone, single, not with anyone, alone. To work on the GROUCHY.
I just really want a cigarette. I don’t smoke. Never did. Not well, anyway. High school was the last time I was anywhere near addicted to it. Thankfully, my mom figured it out and would smoosh everything in my purse, including my pack of cigarettes, so that by the time I got to them, for some reason, they were always little shredded stumps. That got annoying and expensive…and confusing. I never figured it out until she told me years later. So I never got hooked.
And the times that I have bummed cigarette in a moment of drunken weakness as an adult, I’ve felt like double shit the next day.
So, I don’t actually WANT a cigarette, I just want the relief that I perceive might come with a smoke.
Blerg. Is this what maturity feels like? Not doing the things that sound tasty and delicious and fun and freeing, because you know they’re actually not healthy or wise? No wonder people don’t bother with this whole healthy person thing. It super sucks.
I’d eat some worms now if I wasn’t vegan. GROUCHY.
