I really love water. It soothes me. That’s a good thing. It can be vicious and it can be murderous, but it can also be refreshing and rejuvenating and frankly the world always looks better after a nice summer storm. Not a Queensland style Summer storm cause they tend to be a bit above trend to be honest, but a Sydney Summer storm.

I’ve never been white water rafting. I’ve really got no interest in it; there are enough unexpected bumps and dips in my life without going down a river and trying not to let it eat me alive. Watching it in movies or on the net seems to be exciting, but for now I’d rather keep my excitement confined to the television.

I’m having a huge amount of trouble concentrating lately. Particularly over the past 4 days. I can’t follow a sentence smoothly from one end to the other, let alone a whole thought or a story idea. I’ve been watching TV, cleaning and watering the gardening; job hunting and doing laundry. I’ve basically been doing whatever I can come up with to distract myself or keep myself busy. Today it’s not really working and I think I figured out why.

I have a spot I like to sit in when it’s warm enough. It’s under the house at a wooden table. I used to sit here and smoke, play on the computer, write, blog, whatever. I didn’t need anything other than the my table, my Mac and a coffee, a packet of cigarettes and when I was more than a tad stressed a glass of wine.

Yesterday I wrote about not having had a craving yet. Today has been 1 long, craving. NOthing else. No other thoughts; just attempts to figure out where I can get the money, justifying the need to give in. Explaining away the success of the past three days with the line “it’s too hard”. Bullshit. It hasn’t been hard for three days. My brain seems like it’s throwing a tantrum, a two year old told he can can’t have a chocolate. Sort of like my mothers cousin who as a child was known to hold his breath in a tantrum so long he’d go blue and pass out.

It’s day 4 of no smoking and too be honest I’m making every single excuse under the sun. And it’s all bogus. So what if I can’t concentrate, can’t do anything, have thick strands of mucus choking me and coming down the back of my throat like some type of diseased waterfall. So what if I’ve got the attention span of a blow fly with ADD. The first bump in the road. It’s usually where I stop.

And you know what, I’m not stopping. Over the bump I go. I’m not really dressed for it and I should probably be wearing shoes, but fuck it. I’m going over that bump in the road and any others I see along the way. There’s always an excuse, always a reason why next time will be easier, why this time it’s just too stressful because I’m unemployed and I’ve got nothing to do and life is trying to kill me. There will always be an excuse. If I give in to the excuses, there’ll always be a next time too.

I’m sick of next times, and excuses. I’m sick of giving in. Of living in a world where the first bump is the last. Regardless of what my body keeps telling me, screaming at me, everything I look at on the internet tells me that all the nicotine in my blood has gone. In 72 hours the nicotine levels drop and disappear along with most of the other chemicals; and in 5 days your body is chemical free – at least as it pertains to cigarettes.

There’s no way in hell I’m going to give up , and it’s not just because I refuse to put on shoes or leave the house. It’s because I’m no longer someone who is quitting smoking. I have Quit. Allen Carr in his book “Easy Way to Stop Smoking” says that all smokers stop smoking. Every time they put one out they stop. It then becomes a matter of choice. Light up another one, or don’t light up another one. I chose not too. That’s all there is to it really.

And as for this stupid craving today. Blah and humbug. If I can’t be in control of my own brain, how the hell am I going to be in control of anything else. I’ve let my brain dictate it’s terms for the direction our life would go for years. That’s not turned out how I wanted it to. So now it’s my time. And in the meantime, I think the thought behind the image below is a good place to end todays bumpy posts.