Well, I just got back from the most amazing experience. Wait a minute, I'd better start at the beginning or you won't totally understand why it was so amazing to me.

Two weeks, six days, 16 hours, 43 minutes and 50 seconds. 413 cigarettes not smoked, saving $56.80. Life saved: 1 day, 10 hours, 25 minutes.
I am posting my stats right at the beginning so that you know where I am in my quit.

Yesterday, Saturday, was the kind of day that is so rare in one's life, you simply don't want it to end. That's what yesterday was like for me. I've been doing pretty well here lately. And to be honest, although I have certainly had a roller coaster ride of a quit so far, it has not been as bad as I had expected it to be. And here of late, I have been feeling pretty good. I didn't seem to be experiencing such high high's or low low's anymore for which I was extremely grateful. (I know some of you got pretty tired of my crying all over your shirt so you gotta be grateful too.) And then today happened. Now I have read several of your posts that state this very thing. Going along great and then whammo, a brick wall. Well, it may not have been a brick wall but it was certainly a most unsettling day for me. How could I have had such a wonderful Saturday and then Sunday be so wretched?

I woke up with the foggy brain, you know where you can't put two thoughts together. And then shortly after I had gotten up I realized it wasn't just the foggy brain I was dealing with but I had my finger stuck in the dyke again. You know that feeling? Where your finger is plugging up the hole in the dyke and if you pull it out, the emotions are gonna start and you won't be able to stop the flow (from your mouth and from your eyes) and who knows what's going to come out so you are afraid to pull your finger out so you stay stuck there? That feeling?

Well, hell, I was so surprised I could hardly believe it. I had been doing so well. Where did this come from? I tried to act "normal" (in the best of circumstances that's a stretch but .....) but after offending a couple of my friends I knew I'd better just stay low today, keep the finger in the dyke and hope like hell this would go away quickly.

I walked from room to room. I was so restless. "Uncomfortable in my skin" I have heard this feeling described. I cleaned and scrubbed (almost fanatically). I tried to sew. Got a few seams done and just couldn't sit there. I made bagels (comfort food -- that didn't work) I tried to watch soccer (OK, you guys, football!), baseball, the Jazz /Bulls game and all of my teams were losing! And then I sat down here at the puter to read the ng (posting is very hard for me when I am in the midst of the fog and tears--I am too confused to put two words together that make any kind of sense.) and I saw my kite flying friend from Toronto online and he was flashing a message at me. Hummm.... He must have gotten my e-mail and knew I wasn't in very good shape today.

"You wanna talk about it?" (Newbies, give yourself a gift by being a part of a group or by having an e-mail support network so that when you get into these places, you can reach out and someone will grab your hand. It makes all the difference in the world. E-mail me and I promise to answer.) Talk? You mean you want me to talk, make sense, hell, I can't even see the screen clearly, my eyes are so blurred. But OK, I would try. Word by word, I could feel my mind and my body relax and start to connect with my reality once more. Steve told me a couple of things that allowed me to be in this space of confusion and not feel badly that I was there. One thing was that my response was appropriate. I know I have a tendency to ask more of me in these situations than what I am capable of giving and then I get impatient and mad at me (which of course adds to the feeling of panic) when I don't shut up and get clear so I can get on with it! And the other thing that he told me had to do with the recovery process that my body is going through. I needed to take the time to recover. It's healing and although he gave me the chemical explanation the fact is that my body was healing from the abuse I had given it, doing what I had asked it to do (heal) and here I was impatient because it was responding to my request. Plain and simple. So I thought even though I was still foggy and weepy, I at least knew why and felt better with the knowing of it. Thanks, Steve.

So I went for a walk. Now I live in the old part of town. This is an historic town in Nevada and there are many old houses and mansions with their well established trees and incredible landscaping all around here which makes walking fun. It's Spring so all of the irises and daffodils and poppies are in full bloom and nearly overwhelming in their beauty. I ain't paying attention to any of that. I got my walking shoes on and my cap on my head and my attention is focussed on outracing the blues. Well, if I go north from where I live, it's relatively flat and and not so hard. If I go west, I climb hills and get that type of workout which is probably what I should do. Well, I'm not up to fighting to get up that hill. I don't have the patience or the will to do so today. It's too much work and I didn't feel up to the effort and well, I could find a zillion excuses for taking the easier route so I did. Nope. It's due north for me today.

I started walking and walking and walking until the beauty of the flowers just wouldn't be denied. They forced me to stop for a moment and just be in their wonderful profusion of color. Hummm.... OK. OK. That's nice, back to walking. I'm walking and walking but not so fast now. I'm breathing more deeply. And I could feel the panic being pounded out through the bottom of my feet. Wow, here's the blue line. (We have a historic walk through town that takes you around to all of these houses that were built in the middle to late 1800's.) Well, I pick up the blue line and just start wandering. I didn't even pay attention to where I was going, I just started to get into what I was doing. I shut off the brain and just was.

I can't tell you how long I was gone but by the time I realized that the sun had long set and it was getting dark, I was somewhere on the northwest end of town and I knew I had better start back. I had never been to where I was at that point. I had found a new place to explore. I had seen homes that when Ed McMahon and Dick Clark walk up to my door, I'm going to buy. Gorgeous old mansions. I saw flowers so beautiful that it was all I could do to keep my hands to myself and not bring them home with me (not to mention the trouble I would get into for stealing flowers out of someone else's garden!). The air was crisp and the fresh smell from the recent rains still filled my nostrils with it's sweetness. And I was breathing better. Wait. What's that small smile on my face? Holy cow. Would you look at that!

Well, I'd better boogie. I started to wind my way home when all of a sudden, I found myself at the top of the hill that I had avoided in the first place because I hadn't wanted to work that hard to get up it. What I realized I had done was to climb the hill but I had climbed it in an easier way. Straight up was not going to work for me today but the more gentle around about did work for me and wonder of wonders, I still got the the place I needed to be. Hummm....

Tomorrow's a new day. I'm off to go teach the second part of my mystery quilt. Tomorrow the ladies are going to see what all of their hard work from the previous week looks like. I will give them the last of the instructions which tells them how to put it all together and then the mystery will be revealed. After today's discoveries for me, tomorrow will be a mighty appropriate day, wouldn't you say?