Sweet release from a sweet relief
The washing is done, the windows are clean and the dog is utterly over it all. “Let’s do this!” I say, trying to hype him up as we head off out the gate for our fourth 15-minute walk of the day.
“Let’s do this,” I mutter to myself, walking past the newly trimmed hedge, weed-whacked edgings and just-planted seedlings.
I did those last three jobs today, by the way, just before I did the washing, cleaned the windows, and in-between three walks.
It’s Monday, 11am, and 144 hours since I quit vaping.
There are myriad reasons as to why I’ve had to give up vaping and none of them include any actual willingness to do so.
I love vaping. I love it so much I can’t even bear to speak of my love in the past tense. I love it even more than I loved smoking and that’s saying something.
Because unlike all the teens now skipping the durries and going straight to the so-called cessation devices, I picked up the latter in an effort to quit the former.
I’d actually quit the former before and had been free of it for a good three years when for some idiotic reason I started it again. This time though I didn’t have to go cold turkey.
Vaping not only made it very easy to give up smoking, it made it very easy to keep on vaping.
In fact, everything made it easy to keep vaping: the shops are pretty, it doesn’t stink as badly as cigarettes, it’s massively cheaper and, while not exactly welcomed, more socially acceptable.
When it’s not acceptable at all, it’s also easier to hide. The list of the places I’ve managed to vape undetected is both appalling and impressive. Illegal too.
Anyway, I vaped and vaped and, on more than one occasion, quite literally vaped myself sick.
I vaped fumes that tasted of watermelon, peach, and cherry; then I vaped flavours of fruit I’ve never actually eaten.
Sometimes, I even vaped flavours of fruits that don’t actually exist.
I vaped with something called a SMOK, another called a Vaporesso. Often I’d take turns vaping with both.
I also vaped with other gadgets called things I either couldn’t pronounce or was too embarrassed to do so. With those I’d just sort of wave at people behind the counter when they needed a refill. And now I’ve finally given up. While everyone I tell says this is a sensible thing to do, I have been dragged kicking and wheezing to this point.
Essentially I am only quitting under force, or forces to be precise.
Among those is my doctor, a lingering cough from an ancient flu, an upcoming surgery, and various toddlers who gleefully copy every bad habit they glimpse.
“Yum”, said one of the latter recently, pointing to my vape on the kitchen bench, “yum, ta”.
But what’s nearly as horrifying as the thought of the toddlers mimicking my behaviour, is the growing realisation that I’ve been mimicking theirs.
For ages now I’ve been bumbling about with plastic protruding from my face, soothed by a synthetic teat and constantly sticking things in my mouth.
I have become an enormous, 45-yearold baby that really needs her dummy.
Anyway, since I’ve thrown my little plastic toys from the cot, I’ve been keeping myself busy with cleaning, gardening or walking.
And when I’m not, there are all those various toddlers to influence.
“F... sakes ,” said one yesterday and I laughed myself sick.
Because sometimes it’s better they mimic the filth that comes out of our mouths than the filth that goes in.