Good morning

I wake up at 6:47 AM and the first thought is: I'm not going to smoke today.

The second thought, three minutes later while I'm already on the balcony with a cigarette between my fingers, is: Well, fuck.

It's not like I forgot. I remember saying it yesterday—actually saying it out loud to myself while brushing my teeth. "Tomorrow, no cigarettes in the morning. I'm getting that time back." I even felt good about it, felt like the kind of person who could just decide something and then do it.

But today doesn't care what I promised last night.

I take a drag. The morning feels heavy, like I'm moving through something thick. Each pull of smoke a small delay before I have to actually start the day, before I have to be the person who does things instead of the person who just wants to rot in bed.

I think about my journal. How I wrote "Day 1" at the top of the page three different times this month. How confident I felt each time. How that confidence just evaporates somewhere between closing the notebook and actually living through the next day.

Why do I keep doing this?

A neighbor's door slams. A jeepney honks somewhere down the street. I watch the smoke dissolve into the early morning haze.

Maybe the problem is simpler than discipline. Maybe it's that the person who understands this is bad for me and the person who lights the cigarette are two completely different people living in the same body, and only one of them gets to make decisions in the morning.

I finish the cigarette and go back inside, already thinking about tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I tell myself. Tomorrow I'll quit smoking.

--
a short story