Today, at 3:30 p.m. it will be exactly 150 days since I quit smoking. Rough math says that is 5 months. What a journey it has been! If truth be told, I was basically given an ulitmatium by my wife, quit or we were through. So many times I promised her I would quit and as the tears would flow from her eyes when another failed quit was discovered. A couple of years ago I was diagnosed with an enlarged aorta and high blood pressure. Which basically means nothing, at least for now, if I took care of myself. Well as you can see, I am not sitting here with 2 years of freedom so even the health scare didn't phase me.
I remember saying early on in my quit that this one felt different. With my marriage on the line, I usually buckle under such pressure, but this time was different. I guess for the first time in my life I seriously looked at all the good things I had. A wife who gave me too many second chances and two wonderful little girls. Why on earth would I want to shorten my lifespan?
It was time for a change....for them. My wife needed a husband who was willing to stick around for as long as possible. My children deserved a father who would be able to walk them down the isle without lugging an oxygen bottle with them (if I would be so lucky). I needed to change.
And change I did. However, I still didn't care about myself. It was all about them. A life time of self-hate was not going to change simply because I quit smoking. However, quitting allowed me to process different things in my life. It allowed me to recognize my faults but more importantly it allowed me to focus on the positive aspects of my life. Here I was sacrificing what I thought made me happy in order to teach my children a lesson. A lesson that we are not perfect but with hardwork we can overcome just about anything, nothing is impossible, and finally we are not measured by how much money we make or how what we drive, or the price tag on our clothes; we are measured by our word and the promises we keep.
With each step, with each milestone, I began to recognize my own self-worth more and more. Slowly I began to see that not only did my family deserve to have me around, but I deserved it too. So now, for the first time in maybe my entire life, I can say, with a tear on my cheek, that I love myself.
I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I still have my flaws; flaws that I am trying to overcome. However, I'm Rob Clark and I'm a pretty damn good person.
150 days? That is just a drop in the bucket for what I have planned. I am going to join the 1 year club then I'm moving on to the Quad squad or 4 numbers club or whatever its called, because this is a lifetime quit.
