Memento Mori: February 2024

I haven’t smoked a cigarette in 7 years.

The number 7 signifies fullness, completeness, but also insight, intuition, honesty, introspection, intellectualism, and wisdom.

During the month of January, I constantly thought about smoking a cigarette, if for nothing else but to take the edge off of life. I was close to even asking a coworker for one of theirs as I watched them puff away during the work trip. My brain wanted to ask them twice for a cigarette but that same damn brain reminded me that strokes are very real for people who smoke with my chronic illness. Yes, Memento Mori is a reminder that I must die (so live it up!) but that’s eventually AND it doesn’t have to be a slow OR a quick suicide. I can just let life play out and see where it ultimately takes me… so, I didn’t ask for the cigarette. I thought I left that fleeting thought in South Carolina on 1/24/2024 but it came back three days later as my anxiety escalated.

And I have been thinking about cigarettes everyday for the last week.

I started smoking because my anxiety had reached an all time high and there was no way to tone it down. Drinking used to work but that will draw the light closer and leave my child motherless so I tread lightly with liquor. I 100% understand the addictive nature of nicotine because one hit and it slows EVERYTHING down to a tolerable level. My hands stop shaking, the migraine creeping up the back of my skull subsides, the churning in my gut settles, and most importantly, my brain calms the fuck down. It’s an instant fix but an extremely temporary one, hence the habit forming.

I’m not going to smoke BUT this is a lie free space so I’m saying I still want to.

I had a lumpectomy last month and only took a week off work when I should have taken off three. In the month of January, I had to close out the month of December, the last quarter of year, and the rest of the year, right before my surgery. As soon as I came back I had to get hella shit in order before the annual company trip. Took off for that trip a couple of weeks after the surgery and now I’m sick with what feels like a sinus infection/COVID. My energy reserves are depleted and I’m getting a reminder everyday from my body that I cannot push myself like I used to. For one, I’m not 100% healed from my surgery so this isn’t necessarily the smartest course of action but viable options are not plenty in my world. Did I mention I’m also in grad school?

I am a ragdoll who’s been sewing herself back together since she was a live girl.

Due to some articulation skills, I can intellectualize my feelings. This ability has often caused people to think that whatever I’m experiencing isn’t THAT bad. What a lot of people are used to seeing from a person with (complex) PTSD is incoherence and erratic behavior that aligns with words like “crazy” and “unhinged.” However, intellectualizing feelings is not the same as actually processing shit and dealing with it and that’s where the severe anxiety enters the room yearning for a nicotine fix.

A friend acknowledged that my body has been through it for the last few years. That’s been to her knowledge and I appreciate her seeing me and not following it up with some half-ass anecdote that dismisses the validity of my experience. It was a small gesture of kindness BUT it STILL mattered. We’re often told that tough times don’t last forever and while that is definitely a fact, define forever. If tough times are consistently present until my final memento, that was my forever. So, if I look at 2012-2024 of unprocessed shit there’s an abusive marriage, family estrangement, an abortion, begging for a divorce that wouldn’t be finalized until 10 years later, becoming a single mother, several layoffs, family deaths, a couple death scares, several surgeries, dreams deferred, friendships lost, cancer rearing its ugly head, a pandemic, moving across country during a pandemic, having to use up all the life/house savings to survive, a divorce, a dead parent, and the rest of the world being on fire around me, simultaneously.

These last 12 years have been their own damn forever.

So I would like for February to talk to me nicely. I don’t have the energy to plead for more but should more good shit come my way, I’ll take it. Universe, please know this isn’t me saying to pull the final curtain. I’m saying cut me some fucking slack and issue in some wins that cancel out some of this mental and physical anguish.

Life’s a lot to hold right now.

I still want a fucking cigarette.