Me, Fry and cigarettes

We sat in the “Great Court”, surrounded by what we imagined to be sandstone buildings, but in actual fact was merely cladding over ordinary boring standard bricks. There was an element of pride sitting outside the cafe at this great university. Of course we sullied it with our language and our cigarette butts, but that doesn't mean we didn't appreciate how beautiful our surrounds were. 

Looking back, I wonder about my fashion choices. I seemed to be going through my slightly slacker phase, having bought a retro 1970s suede jacket and my skater shoes. The rest of the group in some semblance of that same theme. Sneakers, raver shoes, platforms those were footwear styles that defined the late 90s.

So we’d sit in this here called great court and believe ourselves to be full of promise. My arm would be raised with my elbow rested on the back of the chair and a cigarette extended from my fingers. I would follow the cigarette with my eyes as I brought it to my lips. Inhale and exhale, watch the smoke leave my lungs and my lips. I’d gesticulate wildly with the hand holding the cigarette, watching the great arc of light I’d created from the lit, colloquially known, cancer stick.

It’s because I’ve been reading Stephen Fry’s "Fry Chronicles" that this memory has pushed itself to the forefront of my mind.  I find Fry pee your pant funny as well as being incredibly brilliantly minded. One of my favourite  parts, so far, covers cigarettes and how hard it has been for him to give up the wretched habit.

I can’t really empathise with that bit, as I am not a 100% non-smoker. Well I am as far as any response to a survey would suggest, but I am still a sometimes-when-I’m-drinking smoker. The reason is that I had a love affair with cigarettes, and they were also the essential accessory to my late high school and university years. Smoking now, when I do it, makes me feel young. I forget the wrinkles, the sagging boobs, wide bum and I remember what it was like to be free. It's the next day that I am wracked with guilt and worry about my health.

Cigarettes introduced me to people I would have never met. There’s a smoker’s convenant, and us smokers would huddle in groups outside of buildings making immediate friends with strangers. Cigarettes provide opportunities for people who might be slightly socially awkward. On some level, I probably believed they made me cool. I’m fairly sure that cigarettes helped define me, or my brand, in my own mind.

I was wholly convinced that I smoked to still the dizzying speeds of my mind. Now my brain is so slow that thoughts stumble across my brain like drunken, disoriented old men and they are so rare I am so delighted to see one that I grab onto it with both hands while mentally doing a 'congratulations for still thinking' dance. The little suckers, (ha) were quite powerful in terms of their abilities  to make me believe I couldn’t do anything without having a cigarette first.

But again, thankfully I don't smoke all the time anymore. If I had any self control at all, I probably wouldn't smoke at all. Well I do think I have self control until I have a drink...then things start falling apart. From bad food to cigarettes, after booze I am apparently still a teenager at heart. 

So when Fry tells his story of addiction, I am amazed that someone as supremely intelligent as him can have such issues. I'd have expected him to be more in control than the rest of us mere mortals. So tomorrow, when I catch up with my uni friends, I am will hopefully not feel quite as guilty as I usually would, because even the likes of Stephen Fry finds it hard to give things up.