Letters to the Editor
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The best, or at least the better, is yet to come
I quit for what I hope is the last time around five years ago, when I was coming up on fifty. I progressed through various stages of coughing, physical disintegration and disillusionment before reaching a point where, I realized with some surprise, because improvement had crept up on me stealthily, I felt better than I had in ten years or more. I also look ten years younger than I did when I quit, if you overlook the scraggy haircut and a recent summer of gross overexposure to the sun.
I had quit several times before but failed to cross the bar that separated post-quit crumminess from recognizable improvement. I wonder if the damage from smoking doesn't continue for quite awhile after you stop sucking in the smoke, but you notice it more because hey, you can taste and smell and see things better, including the apparent ruination of your own protesting carcass. Once the repair process takes over you feel better month by month until there's no denying that really, it was all worthwhile.