Acceptance: the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable; a 20 year chapter in my life

Ten years ago today, I walked into a courthouse, I sat down on a hard wood bench, and in 5 minutes I was free of the bond that 10 years prior I had made.  It happened so fast I didn't have a moment to contemplate fully the loss that had just been wiped away so easily.

10 years later, I've come to accept the loss of such things like: youth, trust, love, hope, dreams as they pertained to my young 21 year old mine back in September of 1993 when I said "I do".  Now in my 40's the bitterness that clung to me for three years after that day in 2003 has faded.  Indeed the scars have even healed on my heart.  I look back today with a quiet kind of understanding.  I see the three faces of the woman I was, at each stage of this chapter in my life.  Reflected in the mirror is the vibrant face of my youth, followed by the more mature face of adulthood, and now the woman who might just be a bit wiser and accepting.

Marriage is a commitment that should be taken seriously.  I'm not about to talk about the way society views it currently... but from my view as serious as I thought I took it, I didn't understand it fully.  Even still, now 20 years after I said "I do", and 10 years after I said "no, I don't" I realize the enormous weight that commitment and subsequent divorce has had.  All I can say now is, I accept it.  I accept this is what happened.  I accept the part in it, where I held fault.  I accept the pain and let it go.  I accept the hole that it left in my heart, which over time has gotten smaller, but still remains.  And I accept that the day I kissed the fairy tale goodbye was the day I threw out the dress of white.

But... I still believe and hope that someday perhaps, I'll be allowed to show my heart that I learned the lessons of forgiveness and acceptance (even of self).  And thus I'll be ready to share love and life again.  Hope, it's a beautiful thing...I accept that into my life too.

Gravity

Day One - My willpower is greater than that of my bad habits

I've made the decision to (finally for the second time in my life) to quit smoking. I've set the quit date as today no later than 6pm, or as soon as I finish my last pack (but TODAY regardless by 6pm even if i dont finish this last pack). I spent the money i would have used to buy a carton of cigarettes to buy a number of homeopathic herbs to help alleviate my key stress points during this. And I've been taking those herbs since yesterday.

Any of you that know me outside of this blog know that the same method I'm using today, worked for me back in 2001. For two weeks prior to my quit date, I had a mantra I said every moment I thought of it and I was on the same herbal remedy that I'm on today. I quit back then cold turkey and it "seemed" easy. I stayed off the cigarettes for 5 years.

Then I got cancer. (sounds messed up doesn't it?).

As you can read from these blog posts, I've survived the cancer but the stress of it, the absolute jarring awakening of having had cancer (and survived) coupled with everyone I knew smoking, led me to pick up a cigarette on thankgiving 2007. I've been stuck ever since. I've officially been smoking today for longer than I had quit :( Life has given me a series of ups and downs since 2006 and I just couldn't shake the habit.

Two days ago at my job I had a rather humiliating experience that led me to really take a hard look at my life. I knew out of that experience I had to do something. Pick one thing of the three major things I know I need to do and work on it. baby steps....

And here we are. Quitting smoking was the first choice of the major things I need to do and I've approached it with much zeal. But here we are early on the day of my quitting and already those nicotine induced questions are coming "Are you SURE you want to do this?" "What will you do when that craving hits, you NEED smoking".

Neither of those statements is true. And seeing them already coming before that first nicotine fit has even hit me, I decided to read online about some tools to help me quit and lo and behold writing was one of them. I haven't written in this blog with any seriousness in a long time. I have likely lost any and all readers (those few wonderful people who came to read) which makes this the perfect place to post with complete honesty what I'm doing. Also not just to let my family know, but now anyone that does come to read knows my plan too.

While I still struggle with the demons of my previous cancer, blogging about it daily helped (so did the responses I received from people... I am grateful to this day that people came and read). While I may not receive comments on this journey, I still post it here in the event that anyone going through the same thing knows they're not alone.

So we come full circle. Day One - My willpower is greater than that of my bad habits.

For anyone interested the things I'm doing are the following:
~I've set up reminders/appointments to help me be accountable in my phone.
~I take Vitamin C (1000mg) every morning
~St. Johns Wort 3 times per day
~Ginko Biloba 2 times per day
~Melatonin once per night

The Vitamin C is a huge immune system boost to help keep me from getting sick when my body purges the crap from smoking. The St. Johns Wort is for mood balancing and some appetite suppression. The ginko is to help with memory, the melatonin is to help regulate my sleep (and get me TO sleep). I've also set up daily activities mostly swimming with a balanced reward system for the first month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year. Additionally, I've committed to pulling cards, runes, or reading from a postivity deck I have and truly focusing on one thing. In fact the mantra came from my Goddess cards and was the mantra I used so long ago with success. Meditation too is something I"m going to do (daily hopefully) but at least 3 times a week to help out.

1. Succesful first week - one dvd of choice guilt free from amazon
2. Successful second week - haircut with a stylist I know wont f up my hair
3. Successful third week - two books from amazon
4. Successful fourth week - a Sushi dinner of whatever cost :P and since we'll be approaching end of september consideration of membership in a gym across the street from me that has additional wellness classes (like Tai chi) that I've wanted to try for a long time.

When I knew I was "serious" about it this time was not when I spent a boatload of money on supplements, not when I actually started taking them in earnest, but when I spent a half hour setting reminders, devising the plan and putting it down on paper... well electronic paper but then additionally I TOLD everyone.

For ME, the most important part of this post is this....The commitment to LOVE MYSELF no matter how angry I get, how sad I get, how much I may cry, and allow myself to feel those things 100%. This is part of the process and is just as important as the beginning steps.

That said, I will try to keep any post that is a rant to a clean level of ranting :P But it is here that I will arm myeslf with the final tool of writing so I am successful in quitting and to that, honesty is key.

Additional Links for any interested:
Freedom from smoking
It doesn't matter where you start... just start
WebMd; tips for the first few days
WebMd Smoking Cessation Help Center