A quick entry just to register what happened yesterday, even though I'm in a bit of a rush and I don't really want to write about it, but experience must be registered.
On Friday I saw a pack of cigarettes fall from two groups of people, but they were traversing each other and I didn't know which group dropped it. I caught up with the larger group, it was not theirs. When I turned around to find the other group, they were out of sight.
I looked at the pack: "Fortuna", a cheap brand of foul smelling tobacco. I wondered what I was supposed to do, I could give it away or throw it away. In the end I decided I would keep it as a token of sorts, if I had cigarettes at home and not smoke them, they would become a nice token of commitment. I knew I would eventually fail, but the more the lasted, the more special the token.
They lasted a little over 36 hours. I had bought tickets for a nightclub and was sipping on wine at home when I decided I would indulge. Then I went to the smoke club to buy some weed and I head to the nightclub.
At the entrance I was informed that I couldn't use my baseball cap inside, so I took it off and attached it to my pants. I went inside and as everyone was being body patted I extended my arms. A security guy pulled me to the side and said to the patter "not him", and they let me through. I protested "Oh god you're not supposed to do that" but either he didn't hear me or he didn't care. This happens to me often, I'm not entirely sure why, but I suppose it's positive discrimination. It could be because the average age of the attendants was half my age and the security patdown was meant for them.
I went in the club and danced. I didn't feel comfortable. I tried to "find a spot". None felt right. I went out for a smoke. I went back inside. I drank rum and coke zero. I moved among the crowd. I didn't feel it. I went outside for another smoke. I noticed the cap that I had attached to my pants had fallen off, perhaps from squeezing in the crowd. I remembered this was the same club where I had lost V's gifted jacket.
It all felt deja-vu, in fact I just went hunting for the lost jacket entry and I got sidetracked reading about this period in Madrid... It reads so much like this entry: flat affect, zoning out dancing, losing shit... ugh I don't understand why I come back to it time and time again. As I smoked the pack of "Fortuna" I thought "I'm burning through my fortune".
I threw away what remained of the weed and the mostly full pack of cigarettes as I walked back home much earlier than I anticipated. I thought: I've already lived through this and I know where it ends. No need for berating myself or even making commitments, it's just the rational and emotionally-wise thing to do. I feel much better when I don't smoke and it's obvious in my writing.
I kinda feel (or hope feeling) like my ex-roommate in Barcelona, who quit weed effortlessly after smoking 20y. When I prompted him to tell me how was it that he did it, he shrugged: "I didn't quit weed, weed quit me. I still feel like smoking from time to time, but looking back it was horrible, so that keeps me off". Indeed.