Pink and Green

 

Pink and green are the colors of my smoke-free journey. Pink for pink lungs. Green because I quit on March 11, 2012—in spring, early, early spring, when everyone is craving green, craving spring. Also, green is my favorite color, although blue is at its heels.

As of this writing, I am 14 years smoke-free. Next year, I will have been off the cancer sticks for the number of years I was alive before I started smoking--I started when I was only 15 in 1994! My influences for starting included Susanna Kaysen’s memoir Girl, Interrupted, Franny Glass in J.D. Salinger’s book Franny and Zooey, and 1990s grunge icon Courtney Love. Today, I realize Girl, Interrupted and Franny and Zooey took place in the ‘60’s and ‘50s, when everyone smoked, and it didn’t make you a “bad girl” to do so. And Courtney Love isn’t someone you really want to emulate (even though I still love her music).

After I became addicted, I didn’t like being “hooked on something,” as my Uncle Bud (who was also schizoaffective and a smoker) liked to put it. But there I was. And it was so stupid, because the way I got hooked was to “practice” smoking so I wouldn’t “look like an idiot” when I bummed smokes off my friends. I mean, isn’t that the dumbest reason you’ve ever heard to do something?

So, within months of starting smoking, it became my dream to quit. A few years later, a friend told me I’d been “trying to quit” ever since he had known me. I tried quitting as a New Year's resolution. I tried quitting for Lent. I quit for six months and then started again. But it didn’t stick until I was in my 30s and married, and had a really bad cold. Not being able to breathe made me determined to quit smoking. I had a good reason: I really like breathing. When I told my doctor, who was treating my cold, he proclaimed, “This cold is a miracle from heaven!” My dream had come true–until a few months later, when I bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked a few. By then, I was very put off by the price. I gave the pack to my smoker husband, Tom, and haven’t smoked since then. I still count my quit date as March 11 and act like the slip-up never happened.

Since I quit smoking, Tom has been buying me Pandora charms for each anniversary of quitting. I pick them out because he has no faith in his ability to buy me gifts. This year, we got two charms that feature pink Japanese cherry blossoms. (There’s a lot of green on my bracelet, too.) But, last fall, when I was again getting serious about losing weight, I was very tempted to smoke instead of eating. So that’s when Tom and I got the cherry charm. I wanted the cherries because they remind me of picking cherries in Door County, Wisconsin, a very curative place for me. Being out in nature really soothes me. Maybe that’s why my favorite color is green.