To give up smoking

It's been a while since I quit smoking: 272 days. I thought I'd get used to it by now, that the hunger and thirst had subsided, that I no longer felt restless and like a part of a limb had been amputated. It's not. The truth is, there's not a moment when I don't feel empty, when I don't feel as if I've been ripped out of my whole self. I'm just used to it now, that's all. Rather, I have accepted the painful reality.

I will never smoke again, ever.

Having said that, there's a part of me that hasn't completely given up the craving for cigarettes. It's kind of a daydream. If I were to say that they are the most private, terrifying daydreams that we want to hide even from ourselves... Can you understand that? Anyway, in my daydreams, no matter what I want to do at that moment, I feel as elated as lighting a cigarette to watch my dream movie creep toward its climax.

This is the importance of cigarettes in my life: they bring joy and pain, hope and defeat, joy and sorrow, the present and the future, and in each of these opposing frames, they help me find new shortcuts. When that possibility is no longer there, one feels as if one is naked and helpless.

Once, I took a taxi, the driver kept smoking, the carriage was filled with heavy smoke, I could not help taking a few deep breaths. "I'm sorry! "Said the man, opening the window. "No," I said, "shut it off. I've given up smoking."

I can keep myself from craving cigarettes for a long time, but when I do, it must be from the deepest part of my heart. It reminded me of my forgotten self, the one who was always imprisoned by drugs, artificial foods and health warnings. I want to be someone else, the Orhan I used to be, the smoker I used to be, the exorcist I used to be.

Looking back, looking back on my old self, the question is not whether I should light a cigarette immediately. In fact, the old hunger for a chemical experience is long gone. I just miss who I used to be, like a brave friend or a handsome face. All I want is to be the person I used to be. I always felt as if I had been forced into the clothes chosen by others, into the kind of person I despised. If I go back to smoking, I will have a strong feeling of the night again, and even feel the fear I used to have.

I long to be the person I used to be. I remembered that in the old days I had had many hazy experiences of immortality. In the past, time was still, as if motionless. When I smoke, I sometimes reach some extreme state of happiness, and at other times I feel the most intense despair, as if any state is eternal. I smoke happily, and the world will be in order.

Then I began to fear death. People who smoke can die at any time. All the newspapers emphasize this point. So in order to live, I had to give up the smoking self and become someone else. This I succeeded in doing. Now, that forsaken self, in association with the devil, is trying to call me back to the days when time stood still and death did not fear.

His call no longer fills me with dread.

Because, as you can see, writing can transcend all sadness if you enjoy it.