The Beginning

When I hit the 48 hour mark my boyfriend and I were in Boston waiting for the T, which is the weird Boston version of the subway. An announcement came over the loudspeakers reminding all MBTA riders that smoking is not allowed in any T stations, trains or buses. This was not what I heard. What I heard was a disembodied voice reminding me, and me alone, that I could not smoke in any of the T stations, trains or buses in Boston.

We got to South Station and while waiting for our bus back to New York City another disembodied voice reminded me that I was not allowed to smoke. When I was smoking I never noticed these announcements, and if I did it was always, "Well, I can't smoke here, but I will be able to smoke as soon as I get outside." Now I feel like they're just rubbing it in.

I know that after today the physical addiction will be gone, but so far my desire to have a cigarette has not depleted at all. I alternate between wanting to smoke fifty cigarettes at once and wishing that I could, for one second, stop eating. Without cigarettes I find that anything I can reach ends up in my mouth. Potato chip crumbs off a friends plate, bites of my mother's pulled pork sandwich, straws, pens, my fingernails. If it is near me it will probably end up in my mouth. I feel like I'm teething.