Defending my life…seriously?

Last updated on June 23, 2015

So, is this what I will have to do from now on? Sitting there, talking about my life, looking at my past like Meryl Streep in the movie Defending your life and being judged by hmmm, well by whom?

What if I don’t feel guilty at all? What if I just don’t have any regrets? “You are fooling yourself” so they say and I started to wonder if they are right. Was I fooling myself for all these years? Did I do something for 35 years, just because I couldn’t stop?

As I mentioned before, ex-smokers are the worst nonsmokers. Preaching -and I am no exception- to everybody who wants to listen. It only takes a few weeks without cigarettes and then, all of a sudden we know it all. We throw slogans around like “It’s easy, I did it and so can you” or“Just never take another puff, it’s that simple”. Each one of us has some wisdom to share and so we do.

A lot of ex-smokers run around saying“mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa” wondering how they could ever smoke. A lot of them will tell you that they were just addicts and never really enjoyed smoking. “I just had to smoke, but felt always guilty about it” and I assume that might be the truth for some.

As for me…hmmmm

About 25 years ago I had to say Good bye to a very good friend of mine. We were thick as thieves when we were young and best friends when we became adults. I talked a lot to her before she died and one conversation I can still remember, like it would have been yesterday.  The “regret-conversation”.  She had no regrets before she died and it made me so happy. I promised myself then, that I would try to live my life without regrets too. So far I don’t have any regrets in my life. Yes, I made some questionable and highly stupid choices, but they all made me who I am today and I am still “in the making”.  I like myself. I am not perfect, but I even like all the imperfections and flaws, they define me. All my choices made me who I am today.

I started smoking when I was young, at a time when smoking wasn’t seen as something bad. I met a lot of really great people because I smoked (yes, I do know, I might have met other great people in the non smoking areas too).  I had fun in my life, I smoked, I drunk and ate unhealthy food for a long time (still do some of it). I did it, but I don’t regret it. Yes, I am aware of the fact that I might die of a disease cost by my long time of smoking. I cannot change that. But then I might go outside and get hit by an ashtray, thrown out of the window by a person who just stopped smoking after reading my blog and that will be the end of me 🙂

I had fun in my life and I am grateful for so many things most of all for the gift of having a choice.

Nicotine is highly addictive and I am addicted to it; that part fits in my head. But I loved to smoke, I have never felt guilty about it and I never apologized for it. I was a polite smoker, I walked outside. I never insisted on smoking around non-smokers, I always walked away, but never with guilt. Did I need to smoke? Hello, it is an addiction, yes of course I needed to smoke…but I loved it. I loved the taste, I loved everything about it.

Then one day I didn’t love it anymore and I thought about giving it up and so I did.

I am happy! I have been happy as a smoker and I am happy as an ex-smoker. I still have no regrets! I love to be a non-smoker as much as I loved to smoke!

I didn’t stop earlier because I wasn’t ready, because I didn’t want to and that is the simple truth.

I assume this is the main reason why I just put it out and walked away…I was ready. It can be that easy, in my case it was.

So like Meryl Streep one day I might have to sit in a chair and I will look at my life and will have to defend myself and my choices, but I will do so with a smile on my face. “A hell of a ride” and still is!