Petulant
But, really, I am in the midst of a DEEP YEARNING to say "to hell with it" and pick up my pipes again. It was mostly where my mind drifted to all afternoon and evening yesterday. And it was an autonomic thought when my feet hit the floor about an hour and a half ago. I was hoping a hard run would diminish my desire for a pipe.
I truthfully do not understand this rather chaotic pattern. Do not get me wrong, I know and knew I would always like and want to smoke a pipe. I suspect that may not change ever. The avocation was too ingrained in me for too many decades for me to realistically think it would disappear.
But, I was anticipating that the desire would grow consistently less gnawing. That is not what I have found in a universal sense.
Yes, if I take the "averages" over the roughly 840 days of refraining, there has been a gradual decline in the number of thoughts I have about smoking a pipe each day. But it is not a smooth line by any means. Some days it is only a few mild thoughts about the pipe and pipe tobacco. Other times it is a bit more occasional. But, sometimes, like yesterday and apparently today, the thoughts to smoke my pipes, the desire to smoke my pipes, the frustration at NOT smoking my pipes feels every bit as intensive as on the day I first set the pipe down.
I would like nothing more at the moment than to reach in front of me and to grab one of my larger bowled full bent briar pipes and to stuff it full of my favorite robust burley leaf and satisfy my longing.
I did not think I would still have that intensive level of interest arise anymore after this length of time. If I cannot figure out a way to better wrangle in my thoughts today, it will be another garbled day of getting nothing done, or at least close to nothing. I need to envision myself as an old cattle herder from an old Western film from the 50s as he lassos and errant calf back into submission out on the trail. That is what I must do in order to salvage something of the day, I must lasso my mind into submission.
PipeTobacco
1 Comments:
I have an old friend who gave up his pipes nearly 30 years ago. After 30 years, he has obviously mastered the task of controlling whatever chemical addiction may remain after 30 years as a non-smoker. Yet he has told many of his friends that if he outlives his wife, he will immediately take up pipe smoking again. There is no doubt that, when he was smoking, the chemical aspect of his addiction kept him well-hooked and made it hard to abstain from and then quit his pipes. So, it surprises many of his friends that he still has such constant longings to once again smoke his pipes.
That may be good news or bad news for you. On the one hand, he's an example of someone abstaining successfully for 30 years and learning to disregard his deep-seated and continual desires to smoke his pipes. On the other hand, after 30 years he still describes deep cravings such as you describe, so you may be disappointed if you hope the cravings will ever cease. It seems rather obvious that you, like my friend, will always be a pipe smoker, but you can decide whether or not to be a non-smoking pipe smoker.
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