Ahhhh, nice dinner, then the relaxing after dinner cigarette. Inhale. Exhale. I wonder what is the matter with me. This doesn't taste as good as it used to. Must be the brand. Drive to the store to buy a different brand of cigarette. Inhale. Exhale. Huh. Still tastes gross. Go back into the store to buy a menthol brand. Maybe that will do it. Inhale. Exhale. Nope. Tastes like something I don't want to put into my mouth much less into my lungs. Light bulb going off!!! Duh. If the cigarettes don't taste good, why am I smoking them????That was in 1981. I don't know what changed, but I am so grateful for the awareness it took for me to do such a turnaround and dislike smoking. My children had been nagging me for years to quit smoking. They were just young children and I smoked in the car, in the house, in the restaurant with no regard for anyone else. Even when my children would cough and swing their arms in the car. It was just an act to get me to stop smoking. Right? We did not know back then what second hand smoke would do to other people. People we worked around. People we visited. People in hospitals. People in our homes. People we loved.
I finally have come full circle. I finally get it. I understand I have to first love myself enough to take care of myself. To not smoke. To eat to nourish my body. To get some exercise. That is what happened in 1981. In caring about myself I was able to care about others and expand on that love to participate in the responsibility to leave a healthy planet for the next generations.
