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sunshine jen: Repetitious Repetition
For the last two months, I have been working two jobs in Marina del Rey. Yep, I've become a marina rat with strange tan lines and salty flip flops.
During that time, I tried to keep up with the blogging. I even wrote a piece about how I quit smoking, but something about it seemed familiar. Thanks to google, I learned that I had written about quitting smoking several times before.
Then, last week, when I checked the Happy Robot page, I noticed my Morning Person piece and another morning piece (Meta Morning) listed as a Robot flashback.
Oh no, I thought. I’m stuck in mornings.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
I am turning into that aunt/cousin/sister/friend. You know the one who tells the same five stories over and over again, who comes to Thanksgiving with the wrong pie, who is on the receiving end of a tolerant nod.
Nooooooo.
I took a few deep breaths and let my internal spinster rave decrease in volume. I reminded myself that I was suffering from fatigue and too much sun and that I had been writing on Happy Robot for over ten years. A little repetition was okay. I was all okay. It was just life.
Yes, I can move on from mornings to afternoons and maybe evenings. I sense great potential in other times of the day.
However, some repetitions are good---like breathing. Breathing is good. I hope to repeat breathing for a very long time.
So please excuse me if from time to time, I get a little repetitious. I thank you for your patience. I plan to work on the words like I work on a martini. I will work on it and work on it until I get something close to lovely or at least sublime.
And how did I quit smoking?
I was never a big time smoker. I never got up to a pack a day, but I loved my Marlboro Reds.
Then, I took up boxing.
As I was learning to jab-cross-hook, I realized I needed a lot of cardio. Rationally, I knew that if I gave up the cigs, I would have even more cardio. Physically, I found myself enjoying the adrenaline rush much more than the nicotine high. Instead of quitting cold turkey, I slowly phased the smokes out and replaced them with hitting big bags.
Then one day, I didn't smoke at all. Then, the day after that, I smoked one. Then, the day after that, I smoked none. Then two days went by without a smoke. I looked at my dwindling supply of cigs one day, and I realized I was not going to buy another pack.
I got down to one cigarette, and I decided to save that cigarette for a catastrophic emergency. I held onto that one cigarette for over a year and eventually threw it out.
I did not become a non-smoking saint. A few times, I was out with friends and would bum one. Then, the last time I smoked, I did not like it at all. It just tasted all wrong in my mouth, so I haven't smoked since.
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