I was going to start writing this a few minutes ago but, instead, I went for a walk around the block. I am now writing but, mostly, I’m taking very deep breaths. I look and feel quite silly, but I’ve decided that’s fine, at least for now.
I quit vaping eight days and 12 minutes ago, according to the app I downloaded around eight days and 16 minutes ago. This, as we speak, is the longest stretch of time I’ve lived through without consuming nicotine in just under 20 years.
I started smoking when I was 13, a few weeks after my life changed. I’d spent a miserable childhood in a Catholic, private establishment and, after much begging to my parents, was allowed to transfer to the French equivalent of a comp for high school. To say that my life changed overnight would be a bit of a lie – I was still a weird kid, no matter where I was – but I could tell from very early on that I would be much happier there.
In those first few weeks, a gang of cool girls in my class invited me to have a coffee with them over our lunch break, and naturally, I agreed. Once there, they lit some cigarettes and offered me one. I couldn’t say no. How could I have said no? Within weeks, I was hooked.
To say that smoking altered the course of my life for the better would somehow still be an understatement. I couldn’t possibly begin to count or recount the many times in which going for a smoke or even just asking someone for a lighter broadened my horizons, allowed me to meet like-minded souls, or led me, in one way or another, to have a good time. I don’t regret it for one second.
I don’t even regret switching to vaping just over six years ago, despite knowing even at the time that e-cigarettes just looked a bit embarrassing, and served no real purpose. Nicotine was, for a long time, a very useful drug for me, and one without which I would have struggled to become the adult I am today. It made my brain go faster, gave me something to do with my fingers and my mouth when I was nervous, and allowed me to run away when I needed a quick escape.
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It’s what I’ve been repeating to myself, like a mantra, over the past week. I am finding it tough to quit vaping, but that’s fine: it merely is the price I’m paying for having enjoyed it for so long. I once had to break up with someone I loved dearly but who I knew wouldn’t be good for me in the long term, and this is similar. Sometimes you have to be the grown-up, and it feels awful for a little while, then it gets better.
One thing the break-up and the current situation don’t quite have in common, however, is that the latter cannot help but represent the end of an era. I have no idea who I am without a fag or a vape in my hand, because the last time it happened I was 13. I was a child. My entire teenage years and adulthood so far have been spent with nicotine as a convenient crutch on which to lean. I’ve now kicked it to the curb, and what a terrifying thought, to realise that I must now stand on my own.
What an odd and uncomfortable epiphany, too, to know that I’ve reached the point of life at which the future matters more than the present. For a long time I lived like I was never going to die: now I’m choosing to make today less enjoyable, so that there can be more tomorrows to come. What a change of pace!
Of course, the transition isn’t easy. It was never going to be. I tried quitting vaping last year and it worked for a little while, then it didn’t. I’d done so much prep beforehand; I’d bought gum to chew on and rings to fidget with. I had lollipops in my pocket and nicotine lozenges, in case of emergencies. In the end, none of those really helped, because I’d got it wrong.
The problem was never going to be solved with trinkets or distractions. Indeed, it wasn’t; instead of returning to vaping, I even ended up smoking again for a few months. I went straight back to square one. That was a necessary failure, though. It made me realise my problems ran deeper than previously assumed.
Smoking and vaping were integral parts of who I was, who I am; quitting meant deliberately getting rid of a limb, in the hope of eventually growing another one. I know this now, and that’s why I feel confident that this attempt will stick. What I am doing here is a fundamental rebuilding of my sense of self, and obviously that isn’t comfortable, but isn’t it exciting? I’m shapeshifting, and I have no idea who I’ll be on the other side. I can’t wait to find out.
