But like the days that I have spent without her, I find myself painfully withdrawing from what we used to be. And like some addict I hold on to the memory of her, hoping to squeeze what little I have left. But she is the drug I can no longer afford. And cannot, quite frankly, so easily clean from my system. Smoking has become my substitute it seems – an addiction I am not so eagerly proud of nor so rightly ashamed.

It seems that we are all addicts in some form or another, some of us satiated, while others less-than-so. And try as we might to maybe free ourselves from this addiction, we only succeed in substituting that which we really need.

I thought of putting aside my cigarettes for about a month, under the premise that it didn’t seem fair to finally want to fall in love with someone who didn’t smoke, and yet personally be smoking to my heart’s content. But after a few weeks of abstinence, the depressing reality finally crushed me underneath its merciless toes.

I was not smoking because I wanted to love. And with every wasted day and unsmoked cigarette, I realized that I’ve been fooling myself into thinking that it was possible – oh, so idiotically possible – to move on.