coffee is wonderful

So, it is day 2 of my blog and while I think am so full of things to say, in reality, I am not. I suppose the story of why I started smoking again after having quit for 9 years is mildly interesting. It was after Hurricane Katrina. I was 36 weeks pregnant when that stupid storm came along. It really was insane. We did not evacuate, in fact, we had never evacuated before.

But, we also weren't at home. We were on an overnight trip to Houston, our last little jaunt before the baby was born. I had packed up my fatty girl maternity underwear and the one pair of maternity jeans that fit and we hit the road. It's only 6 hours away. That was Friday, August 26, 2005. We did not come back home until November 15, 2005. It was like a really bad episode of Gillian's Island.

To add to all of this, my mother was dying of cancer, the 2 dogs and a cat I had literally begged my brother in law to rescue from our house were now in the car with us, and my feet were so swollen, I had to shove them into men's size 10 flip flops and even still, they were spilling out the sides.

So, I have the baby, I fall into a deep and painful depression that includes delusions and thoughts of putting the baby in a box in the closet, and then I beg my husband to bring me back home to New Orleans, and once we are here I cry every day because it is not where I want to be. Where I want to be does not exist.

And my mom comes home to die. And the baby grows bigger. And I eventually go back to work. And they want me to come to New York for a meeting.

And Mike is using drugs again. Soma, Lauratab, Valium, Vicodin, Methadone. I hate him. I hate him with all of my being. I want to pull the knife from the kitchen drawer and run it through his heart.

I have lost my city, I am losing my mother, and now I am losing my husband.

So I go to NYC and leave my dying mother and my baby and my asshole husband.

And I cry. And I cry. And I need something to ease the gut-wrenching pain in my heart. And I consider sleeping with a stranger or getting drunk, but I smoke. I pick the one with the least amount of immediate collateral damage.

And now, 2 years later, on this day, I again have 6 days smoke free. And the anger comes back and the sadness and the fury of all that pain that has lain dormant all of this time raises its beastly gaze.