I was once a smoker...

(Yes, I used to smoke, this picture is probably about 4 years old)

It just don't work out in the end, just as with any sport. If you are planning to be as great as you can be, it is time to quit! For yourself and the people around you!

I used to smoke, at one point me and my roomie smoked a pack a day (if you speak Swedish you can find her on her own blog mirijam.blogspot.com), it think we thought we were cool or something, but I guess we were 17, so we might be excused based on that. But NO, there is nothing cool about smoking, you stink and most of all, you pollute that air for people that are not smoking and make people that are allergic seriously ill.

My first cigarette was from a pack of cigarettes I stole from my parents, I think they were Camel lights, and it tasted terrible, but I know it also tasted like an adventure, I knew I was doing something that I wasn't supposed to do, and triggered by the forbidden, I continued to cough myself thruogh that first pack of cigarettes, to be followed by many more. For a short time I smoked menthols, that my New Jersey friends would make me go buy the pack, because I pronounced it 'mentals' and it would leave them laughing for hours and hours. For a short while I was inspired by my punk friends and would roll my own cigarettes. My favorite was always Red Prince, a Danish cigarette that I abused for many years, until I moved to US, where those were nowhere to find....
I guess as a former smoker I can remember the calmness that would occur after a few drags, the slight high that the nicotine would provide me with. I also can admit that I always felt slightly cool standing outside the bar with a cigarette. Also cigarettes are great company, for some reason a person sitting alone smoking don't seem as alone as the person that just sits. And then it's the poetic aspect to the cigarette, it just looks better to be a suffering poet, teenager, artist or anything with a cigarette. A black cup of coffee is just more dressed up with a cigarette, blowing smoke sexy over the edge of a glass of dark red wine has something luring to it... yes.. yes... yes I KNOW all this!

You will still taste like an ashtray while kissed, you will still be short of breath on your third lap, and you will still give your allergic friends asthma attacks, all your clothes will smell like last nights party and your hangover will be worse... it always is if you smoked. And saying that you just can't quit makes you sort of lame, because anyone can do what they really want to do, and wanting itself is the key. You have to want to quit to be able to quit, and being an amazing rollerderby player was enough of a motivation for me, that and being sick of feeling like shit and smelling unattractivley...

It is now about 3 years ago since I had my last cigarette, and I feel better than ever, and yes it was hard to quit, I had quit about 10 times before, but 3 years ago I just decided I wanted to quit. I really wanted to quit, no matter what... and so I did! When it comes to smoking I don't mind being a quitter...