Pappy didn’t like any of his kids smoking. I think he lost an aunt to lung cancer. And a cousin for sure. Anyway, he did not like it. So after I got over rubbing it in his face, I tried to be cool about not smoking around him. When you smoke a pack a day it is kind of hard to just sneak one or two every now and then. Once he dropped me off at Newark, I went straight to a coffee shop and smoked three in a row.
I was probably reading some sort of South American novel too. Between the book and the cigarettes, I felt pretty bohemian. Being bohemian seemed important. Being bohemian seemed like who I was, so that meant smoking was part of who I was. Except what I put between my lips really doesn’t have anything to do with who I am. It took a long time for me to give that idea up, and to give up on smoking.
Anxiety is the same way, oddly enough. I can make believe that the nervousness or adrenaline or whatever is a part of who I am. I’ve tried to make that work. For a while there I thought I was Josh Lyman. That’s a great character, but a) he’s fictional and b) he’s not a great role model. Plus that anxiety is a part of me, but it is not a part of who I am. Or smoking, or depression, or whatever.
There is a reason why they called them demons and talked about possession. Those things come in and settle down and act like it’s their place. I’m sure the whole process is worse for someone with depression or schizophrenia. A small anxious demon is a hell of a lot more manageable. All it takes is 2 plus hours of running and a serving of peanut noodles and that little bastard is gone.