Smoke and Irony, No Mirrors

It took me until I was 46 years old.  And amusingly enough, it really WAS what I'd used as my excuse all those years.

Mind over matter.

I quit smoking.  

August 3, 2011.

I started when I was 15.  SOLELY to fit in.  The cool girl, Louise, crazy beautiful dark read hair, teeny tiny waist, and a pear shaped bottom that all the boys loved to see encased in red tab Levis, smoked - as did other hoodlums I was running around with then - and if cool girl Louise was going to smoke and offer me a Marlboro Red, then by-God, I was gonna take it and smoke it just like the big dogs...  I'd fit right in then, right?

I still distinctly remember thinking "Oh dear God, this shit HURTS!" when the first drag I inhaled made its rough brick way down my throat...  and yet I still kept at it.  George Carlin was right, we should age backwards...  God, what great sense it would make that we should know more as kids and less as adults! 

Anyway...  I'd been participating in Boot Camp Challenge (I'm now proud to say that after months of grueling and overwhelming studying and final testing, I'm a certified personal trainer and certified BCC trainer and run morning and evening boot camps as well as my "day job") since April 2011 and one morning, running the quad, I thought, "Why the hell am I doing this to myself?"

You see, I'd been told a decade earlier while in the throes of a bout of pneumonia that I had the beginnings of emphysema but that since I smoked so little it'd be fine if I quit because while our lungs will never repair the damage done, they will stretch to accommodate.  What does that mean for someone like me?  It means the QUEEN of fooling herself will "quit" and then when she feels "stressed", or is out with friends for drinks, or it's Tuesday...  she will think, "I don't smoke much, it's ok."  

I swear I'm not that stupid, folks.

Anyway, there I was, running the quad, and not really having a horrible time of it but still feeling like I was struggling 4 months after I'd begun BCC and my endurance was higher than it's maybe ever been and I thought, "Why am I doing this to myself...  I could have so much MORE endurance."

And that was it.  I haven't touched another one since.  

I've wanted to a couple of times.  Even dreamed about it once a couple of months ago when my granddad died and I wanted to curl up and never get back up.  But I was done with it.

And that's where the smoke comes in rather than leaving.

Everything's a game.  I don't care HOW enlightened you are, how smart you are, how much you DON'T "play the game".  You still play the game.

She isn't calling and she's spending too much time with her friends out drinking?  I'll post a pic on FB of me with a group hugging a hottie.

He hasn't said he's sorry that he got too drunk and pissed in mom's potted plant?  I'll cut him off until he does.

I said something really shitty to her in a fight and she told me to get out, I won't call for days and let her make the first move since I'm pissed she called me on my shit.

I was really crappy to him at my mother's because my mother was being a bitch and I felt 12 years old again but he should say he's sorry because he got tired of MY shit and went home rather than stay over; I'm going to disappear and he can just come find me.

I've heard ALL of these before, and more, from men and women friends.  No one's immune.  No one DOESN'T play a game of some sort.

Maybe you've been walked on before so you pony up balls to the next guy even though he's been nothing but nice just to prove you can't be walked on again...  maybe your last 3 girlfriend's cheated on you so you cheat on your new one to "beat her to the punch".  You don't have to be conscious of the game to play it.

So.

This all hits me when I get a text from 30.  You remember her - "Aahh, fuck'im, what he doesn't know won't hurt him!" from the I-could-tell-him-a-lie-but-I-don't-want-to-be-that-person blog - saying the guy she's been seeing for a month has totally backed away and what should she do?

Now let me say that she's in a very different place now than she was.  She's still very looks-oriented...  Regular Joe with a paunch?  Hells to the no.  Tyson Beckford?  Even if he were a flaming user-asshole?  With fucking BELLS on.

But before it was the younger the better, the more committment-phobe the better - the goal was no attachments, take me out in $tyle and $pend to make things happen, wanna sleep over?  Time to get out!

Now, she's been single for about 8 years and her priorities have finally changed.  Now she's looking for that relationship.  That bond.  That trust.  That closeness.  That knowledge that someone will catch her when she falls and she'll do anything to catch them when they fall if she can.

Now THAT is a girl I can hang with.

So fine...  she's met a guy, Single Dad, with two boys her boys' age, they've been going out for about a month and she got butt-hurt about something he jokingly said about her being allowed to flirt with one guy at the holiday parade and she just had to bring him a picture so he'd know whether to be jealous.  She totally focuses on the idea that he doesn't like her like she likes him and why not and what did she do and how come and what can she do to make it better and why doesn't he like her like that...

ALL through text.  Now I'll confess I'm a serial texter...  but NOT for serious shit like this.  SOOO much gets lost and we ALL damned well know that!  But she texts him all of this.  Bombards him.

So what's Single Dad do?  Shuts down.  She's coming across desperate and clingy and he's just inked his divorce papers and only a year separated, is NOT ready for that yet.

So yesterday I get the text from 30 that, despite my counseling to give him some breathing room, she wonders if she should text him and tell him she misses him?

ARRRGH!!  What?!  I already saiiiiid...

::sigh::

"No.  Silence.  Put the phone down.  He needs to miss YOU."

"Oh fuck, they never do!"

"I mean it.  Never forget, you are amazing.  If they don't, then they're not the right one."

"But sometimes they need to know they're missed - right?  What if he just needs to hear it?  What if I need to show I'm the right one?"

Shit.  Seriously.  She's pretty and smart and funny, has a good job, nice car, her own home, she's thin, has beautiful clothes...  seriously, she has it ALL...  how in GOD's name can she be THAT insecure about herself.

::sigh::

"You already know that answer.  You've shown him how you feel, and told him."

"True.  Ok.  I won't.  Little Boy and I will be watching the Salem parade at the office Friday night if you're around."  

"Sounds good"

8 hours later she texts again... 

"So I deleted SD's number today so I wouldn't be tempted and he just texted me and said he misses me!!  :)"

"Not as dumb as I look."

Only I AM dumb as I look.  Two years ago I'd've been dangling from the same damned string.  But I had the dumb luck to lean on someone who walked me through unscathed.  Well.  Almost unscathed; Navy left a few scars.  :)  But they gave me superb advice and they repeatedly told me I was a good woman and had more value than I was giving myself credit for.

All I did was turn that towards 30.  

And I gave her the advice I was given, too...

"Ok.  Since he said he missed me...  and I told him I missed him...  can I ask him out???  Or see if I'll see him again??"

"Nope.  Silence.  You told him you miss him.  He needs to make the next move.  He backed away because he felt pressured.  Let him come back to you now."

Same advice I was given two years ago.  And it was spot on.  "Silence.  It will kill them.  They'll show up at your door, I swear."  They need the space but it will kill them and they'll show up at your door.  Maybe not literally, but they will. 

Yep.  spot on.  And I passed the game right along to her.

Now the thing is - though I see that kind of maneuver as a game, it's reality and non-game, too.  She was bombarding him and he was spooked and he needed the space.  Like a startled cat, he came back slowly, checking the room for barking dogs.

Today I get the text that starts me thinking of The Game again... 

"Single Dad asked to see me again.  :)  You rock!!!  xoxoxox"

Yep.  

"Unfortunately, I had a very good teacher.  Maybe I'll tell you about it some time."

She "wins", I helped a friend, she's maybe gotten a little self-confidence boost from it...

Match, set, game.

So how does 16 months of non-smoking combine with that to bring me to Smoke, Irony, No Mirrors...

Well...

All games aside; it's a mindset.  Like quitting ciggies.  Decide there won't be mirrors.  Speak what's in your heart and don't be afraid to. 

If you can't trust the person on the other end to understand then you need to take a look at one of you. 

Either yourself for being too afraid to speak.  Or them if your words would change their perception of you.

I've been too afraid to speak so many times in my life and only a few times have I not regretted it.  More often, I've lived with the knowlege that had I, things would have been better.

So I give.  Uncle.  I don't want to be afraid to speak any more.  I've lost too much in this life because I have been.

Because I've learned in my universe that submission, in many arenas, is a far better thing than pride and much more rewarding.  No smoke.  No mirrors.