I didn’t do a year in review. There wasn’t much to say. everyone knows my husband was deployed 7 months of 2010 (and 5 in 2009 to make 12). Everyone knows he came home. That was about it. And I didn’t post any New Years Resolutions because I don’t like them. Every time I’ve made them public I have failed in keeping them. The end result being, I felt like a failure. So I didn’t make any. Publicly. In my head I made a few. The first being a success if this post actually gets published. The rest to be published as they happen and not a minute sooner.

As I’m writing this it is January 6, 2011. It is four days before my classes begin. It is day two without a cigarette. There have been some really rough patches. Just in 48 hours! But I’m taking everything I have learned through deployments, child rearing, and being married and using them to assist me.

1. Pick Your Battles (parenting/Marriage)

Frustration and aggravation are the two hardest things for me. Usually when I’m ready to blow my top, I reach for my jacket, go outside, and have a cigarette to calm down. Things that usually annoy me  into a shriekfest, I’m letting go. Screw it. I don’t have the energy to deal with it, it’s not worth it.

2. It could be worse (Deployment)

I went a year without my HUSBAND. A YEAR. I can survive without my right hand man for that long, I can survive without a cigarette.

Ok so it’s not a long list at all but it works.

Now, here’s my Non Smoking Resolutions.

1. I Refuse to be one of those “Better than thou” non smokers. That’s bullshit. I swear to Pete ex smokers can be worse than non smokers in the looking down the nose department.

2. I will also never support scaring the holy freakin crap out of people to make them “want to Quit”. You know why? Because scaring the shit out of a smoker MAKES THEM WANT A CIGARETTE !! This is the stupidest approach I have ever seen! You want people to quit? Set up FREE or LOW COST detox centers or something. They do it for heroine and crack addicts! And you’d probably get less “Not in my neighborhood” complaints too. Then again, in the last several years I have seen smokers end up treated about as well as drug addicts and homeless people. People wrinkle their noses and look at you like the stuff they scraped off their shoes.

3. I will never support taxing the bejeezus out of tobacco as part of a “Sin Tax” If the 10 commandments can’t be shown in the courthouse, and a football player can’t take a knee after a touchdown and point up to God because that is praying in school, then the government can’t state smoking and drinking are sins and tax accordingly. I’ll be taxed for my sins when I die by a higher authority so kiss my ass.

4. I will never tell anyone else they should quit. Because I know damned well it doesn’t help. It just adds to the guilt, and fear smokers already carry around from the friggin media (see #2). You don’t quit because you should. You don’t quit when you’re scared. You quit when you WANT it more than you want the cigarette.

I sincerely hope I get to publish this post. I have previously crashed and burned on day three. If I pass that hurdle this time, this post should see the light of day.

*Since writing this, I’ve had two very small slip ups.  But I didn’t smoke a full cigarette either time, just a couple puffs and got disgusted and tossed them.  Today is two weeks since I said I quit. I’ve also started school, the first day was the source of the first slipup. So far I like it, except one class. Luckily, I’m still in the add/drop period so I dropped  it and picked up an Intro to Crime Scene investigation class. Intro to Creative Writing just didn’t work for me.  It was more On Demand Creativity than How To.

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