History - My Life as a Smoker

As a kid, (perhaps it's the same or similar to a lot of people), I was
aware that mum and dad does a funny thing.
They would take out a small cylindrical object, with a yellowishorangish
tip on the end. They would put that yellowish-orangish tip in
their mouths. They would bring out a lighter, and lights the long white
end of the cylindrical object. The end would glow red.
I would see their faces relaxes as they draws in some sort of smoky
air that goes through in the glowing ends. I would see them inhales
deeply. They would look like they're holding the smoke in their mouth,
and then they would exhale, blowing the smoke out.
I would noticed the difference between the colour of the smoke
curling up from the end of the cigarette and the smoke that comes out
of their mouths. Both are differently coloured. The one from the
cigarettes would be more white, sort of bluish, and the colour of the
smoke that issues out of their mouths would be greyish, almost black...
it's like all the good stuff stayed inside and the bad stuff comes out.
I realised years later, it was all bad stuff, not good stuff.
The only good stuff was the nicotine and that's the bad stuff.
It's a slave device, it never let you go.
I'd see mum and dad sighs contentedly, relaxing and looking almost
doped up, which they really were.
I thought this was normal. Though now and then it puzzled me over
the years. Sometimes I wished they don't do that stuff. It would be nice
if they don't do that stuff.
I grew up thinking it was normal.
It's all I ever see, mum and dad smoking that stuff, and associated
with the smoking habit is the habit of coffee, drinking cups of coffee,
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five to ten times a day, sometimes more, for each of them.
I got used to smelling these, the smokes and the coffee, growing up,
a part of life.
What I did not expect is that when I grew up I would copy them.
If I had known before what I know now, I would have figured out a
way to avoid getting involved in any episodes of smoking, but there
was no way around this.
I just did not know.
Perhaps, if my parents had let us smoked a packet of cigarettes, to
teach us that the stuff is horrible, as worse than anything we could think
of, perhaps it would have worked to make us hates smoking.
A friend told me his parent caught him having a puff, so they gave
him the ultimatum: smoke a packet of smokes, and so that is what he
did.
But he hated it.
Smoking it one after the other, he grew sick and he never touched a
cigarette ever again.
Now that's a mean achievement, for he is now 55 years old, and still
healthy as ever. He was only a kid of ten therebouts when he was
forced to smoke, so that's a great method to teach us kids how smoking
is a horrible way to become a slave to the sticks.
But my parents never thought it would work for me, and my little
brother. So I was left with the impression that we all, when we all grow
up, will ends up with sticks in our mouth, smoking like stinky
chimneys.
I did not know that choices comes into play. That we have choices.
That it is up to all of us to choose, to smoke or not to smoke. It is that
simple.
I wish at times my parents explains this better.
The choices is up to us. To live a life of stinky smoke or to live a life
of fresh pure air.
We have freedom of choice. All of us. No exceptions.
As a child I did not understand all these concepts, instead as a child I
played, as all children do, in the garden.
I played with Match toy cars, in the driveway of my old place a long
time ago. Chevy, Plymouth, and the like. I would build roads in the dirt
track of the driveway, lined with three long lines of grasses that grew
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like forests, and I played racing along the dirt track.
The driveway led from the front to the backyard along the red bricks
side of the house. The sky was blue, a brilliant blue, with a droning
aeroplane far off in the distance, with white clouds scudding the sky
from horizon to horizon, though none far above me except a brilliant
yellow sun shining down to caress my face warmly when I looks up
now and then, absorbing the shining clean world above me. Pure fresh
air, full of oxygen blew across my face, as I played with my toys.
This is the memory that stayed with me for the rest of my life.
I still remember the white dog in the back yard, barking, for some
unknown reason. It looks like a husky, all white long fur. It was a
beautiful dog, but I never approached it, nor touch it. It was a scary
dog. Beautiful to look at but best left alone. My parent was babysitting
it while the owner went away for a holiday. How long it was, I do not
know. I only remember these as a snapshot of time, a small clip of time
that showed me the clues, pointing the way toward freedom.
And that was the difference between outside and inside.
Outside, pure fresh air.
Inside, stale smoky air.
That is the way of it, growing up.
Most of my childhood I spent outside, with my little brother at
times, playing in fresh pure air. Sometimes we'd play together.
Sometimes we'd play with new friends in the neighbourhood. I was the
only deaf there in that street.
I met other relatives who smoked; grandparents on both sides of my
parents, uncles, aunts, even older cousins. They all smoked. I really
find it difficult to remember if there was anyone who did not smoke.
Another thing about smoking is that I notices our friends' parents
also smoked. So, smoking is a given, not all that rare the way it is now.
I did remember being sick of the smokes. At times it's so annoying,
it's a waste of time, when there was better things to do, and associated
with the smoking was the addiction my parents have with coffee.
Seemingly uncounted cups of coffee, even I and my little bro was
pressed into making them cups of coffee most times in the day when
we'd get inside and intent on relieving ourselves or grabbing a bite and
a drink of something to quench our thirsts. Instead we have to make
them a cup of coffee... (sighs).
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For me, smoking is also associated with coffee, the staleness, the
smell, cloying and thick, like a pall of noxious gas that lays over
everything, in the house, in our clothes, even in our food, it seemed
like. The only fresh air to get was to open the window or go outside.
Looking back in hindsight I have to wonder how we managed to
survive all those years living in less than optimal oxygen-poor life. It's
a wonder I did not develop asthma or worse. I'm even amazed that our
bodies are tough, adapting to less than optimal conditions. But sadly,
there's always a time when too much is too much. The limit will be
reached, and then it's there, but no further. This far, but no further.
I absolutely hate coffee, the stink of it, no thanks. For me, smoking
and coffee go together, like a twin of sick.
By the time I'm in high school I knew how smoking felt like.
My first encounter with a packet of cigarettes belongs to a friend of
ours. He would periodically go on errands, to get a packet of cigarettes
for his Uncle.