In Which I Try Something New

Way back when I first started writing here, I mentioned a recurring dream that I had been having. I was having the same dream at least once a week for a couple of months, where I started smoking cigars. Since last May when I wrote about it, the frequency of the dream has dropped down to at least once a month. The fact that I have a recurring dream doesn't bother me, but something about it just sticks with me.

I have never smoked anything in my life. The closest I ever came to smoking was the time I got a cigarette from a kid at school in the seventh grade. I swiped a pack of matches from the cupboard where my parents hid them in the kitchen, and hid out in the woods behind my house. I put the cigarette in my mouth and I had a match in my hand, ready to strike it against the side of the matchbox. I could already smell the sulfur, already see the flare of fire and smoke as it caught. With the cigarette hanging from my mouth and the match just in front of it, I paused. I paused just long enough to realize how much trouble I would be in if I got caught. I dropped the unlit match and the matchbox on the hard packed dirt where I stood, and broke the cigarette in half. And with that, the moment where I had been the closest I have ever been to smoking ended.

Looking back on that moment now, I was smart to not follow through with it. Besides the obvious health risks, my mother had a keen sense of smell and would certainly have picked up on the distinct odor of cigarette smoke on my clothes. I can only imagine the hell that would have brought me had I not chickened out. Right around the same time as that, I snuck into my parents liquor cabinet with intent to try some of their booze. Same as with the cigarette, I stopped just short of actually doing anything for fear of getting caught. Back then, there was nothing scarier than getting in trouble by my parents. All of my nightmares paled in comparison, even the one I had after I saw E.T. for the first time. 

In my mind, sneaking cigarettes and booze is one of things that most kids do in their teen years to rebel from their parents. My parents had their hand on everything I did, especially when they started homeschooling me and my sisters, so I never got a chance to try anything like that again until I was out from under my parents roof and their sometimes smothering grasp, in college. I've had my share of alcohol since then, but I have yet to try smoking. I've had the chance to many times, but every time I would come close, I'd remember that moment in the woods behind my house, with that unfiltered cigarette dangling from my lips like I had seen people do on TV, and stop. I've never had one cigarette or cigar, nor any other smokable substance, in all of my teen or adult years. I feel as if I've missed out on one of those rites of passage of growing up, but it is of my own doing. 

Every time I have that dream where I start smoking cigars, I promise myself that one day soon I will buy a cigar and give it a go. A couple of times I've actually come close to asking the clerk behind the counter at the convenience store for one. As you can probably guess, I've yet to actually follow through. 

I won't follow through because I'll think of my grandfather, my father's dad, and how his habit of smoking cigarettes led to his death more than ten years ago. I'll think of all those posters and commercials I've seen of how many people die from smoking each year. And even as an adult who is responsible for his life decisions, I'll think about how my parents would react. I know that one cigar doesn't mean I'll be addicted for life, but with all those thoughts reeling through my mind like a video cassette on fast forward, I'll change my mind before it's finally my turn to check out at the convenience store counter.

I have missed a lot of opportunities to experience things in my life because I have been too scared to step up and just do them. In high school, I could have gone to France. After high school, I could have gone to an out-of-state college. I could have done countless things that I now regret not doing because I have been too afraid to try something new.

Not any more, though.

I had the dream again last night, the one where I smoke a cigar. When I woke up this morning, I could almost smell the smoke from it in the air. I sat up and swung my feet out of bed, and even in my groggy state of consciousness, before my feet even hit the floor, it was settled in my mind. 

It is one thing that I have always wondered about, always wanted to try, and always been too scared to do. Even though that dream was the same as it ever was, something about it finally struck a chord within me. If I want to smoke a cigar, I'm going to smoke a damn cigar. Simple as that.

To some people, the act of picking up a cigar and smoking it wouldn't be a big deal at all. To me, though, it is. I'm taking charge of my life, even if in this one small way, and doing something I've wanted to do for many years. It is strangely liberating.

Maybe I'll enjoy the cigar, but maybe I won't. Maybe I'll try a different type to see if I like that one better, but maybe I won't. Maybe doing this will open the door to other things I've wanted to do, but maybe it won't. 

We'll see what happens.