They say you should tell everyone

I really like me, but it is time for a change.

I have sculpted me for the past 29 years to be a balance of essentially the guy who makes his bed every morning and the guy who has a perpetual five-o-clock shadow. I like my complexities and contradictions. I think that make me interesting. You may not. Your problem, not mine.

I am going to change, though.

If you asked someone to describe me I imagine in the first minute or so they would mention that I am a smoker. I had my first cigarette when I was 12. I have been a “smoker” by any reasonable definition since I was 16 – a time period I can now nearly measure in decades. For anyone who knows me, they know it is a defining part of me.

I do not just smoke. I am a smoker.

But that needs to change. The hardest part of quitting for me is not the addiction – although that is difficult. It is removing the label “smoker” from myself, as well as the deep roots that label has put down.

No more smoke filled rooms.

No more cigarettes on 3rd and long.

No more cigarettes ashing on the keyboard as a type.

No more traffic jam smoke-a-thons.

Cup of coffee. Only.

Glass of bourbon. Only.

Sunny day and a beer on the patio. Only.

While I’m fishing, it’s just me and the lake. When I finish a hike, it’s just me and the view.

When I wake up Monday morning, I will look the same, sound the same, act the same. My values will be the same. My accomplishments will be the same. My failures will be the same. However, I will be a very different person.

I will no longer be a smoker.