Amy Ayres Home

My addiction

As many of you may or may not know, I have been a smoker the last 16 years.  Scary number of years to admit.  It is a goal of mine to become an ex-smoker this year.  On Jan 2, 2010, I quit smoking.  It was one of the scariest things I've done.  Scarier than jumping out of a plane and scarier than breaking up with a long term boyfriend.  But I am determined, so I took that first step.  And here I thought that was going to be the hardest step.  Not so much.

I quit cold turkey and it has been a hell of a week.  That is what they call it, hell week.  And it sucks.  I don't think people really understand addiction until they go through withdrawal.  I was really shocked by it. My first couple nights sleeping were spent tossing and turning, waking in sweats, and having terrible dreams.  I've now moved on to pure insomnia.  I have cried more in the past 6 days than I have in the last 6 years.  I'm not taking about tearing up.  I'm talking about gross, sobbing, pounding your fist tantrums.  And they are set off for no apparent reason, except that you are constantly walking around on emotional egg shells.

I'm trying to journal my experience on a blog here.  It's called "My addiction" (link is on the left with the other links on my site).  When I first started the blog, I called it "My bad habit".  But with all that I have experienced in the last 6 days, all that I have read, all that I have talked to.  It isn't a bad habit.  It's an awful addiction.  And I'm trying to break that addiction, one day at a time.  If you know someone that has broken an addiction, make sure you give them a high five or an award.  Because they deserve it. 

 

 

Happiness

There is such joy in seeing people you love, happy.  Not just happy because they ate a good steak.  I’m talking about genuine happiness because of things they worked towards to get them where they are today.  To witness such happiness by loved ones warms you right in the belly down to your toes.  

I’ve been in a funk lately and tonight was a productive night for my mental state.  It could be due to the fact that I am on the road to recovery from this awful cold, but I think it’s more because I’m tired of my mood.  My mood has even depressed me.  I have been feeling unhappy.  Frustrated.  Disappointed.  Bitter.  Angry.  You can see why this has led me to my state of funk.  I usually get past these moments of self pity with a pint of ice cream and a good chick flick. 

Lessons Learned

Someone asked me recently what I've learned from past relationships.  It's ironic because I had started to write a piece about this topic a couple months ago, but hadn't completed it.  Now I'm going to put my thoughts in writing.

These are my lessons learned about romantic relationships, not flings or just dates, but relationships.  Lessons on the other topic (flings, dates, etc) is a whole other subject.  I have many more, but here are 5 lessons I've learned.

1) People don't change.  I think this is a hard lesson to learn for most people.  It's hard to learn because in most cases, we really want the other person to change and we take it personally when they don't.  For example, if your partner doesn't have ambition, and has never been an ambitious person, they aren't not going to wake up one day and become ambitious because you want them to be.  Or if your partner lives in the moment and likes to spend their hard earned cash instead of saving it, this isn't going to change about them.  Which brings me to the next lesson learned.

The list

While at a team dinner this week with my co-workers, people started sharing pictures of their pets and children.  There was a picture of a Labradoodle and then other pictures of teenage girls. 

The partner on this project, one of the nicest people at the firm, tells us he doesn't have pictures but then takes out his wallet and holds up a folded piece of notebook paper, with brown edges and permanent crease marks. 

He opened up the piece of paper and there was a handwriting list with big bubbly writing on the front and back.  He held it up and told us it was a list his wife wrote of all the reasons she loved him.  She gave it to him 19 years ago and he always kept it in his wallet.  He then delicately folded the paper back to it's permanent structure and placed it back in his wallet.

Although pictures are worth a thousands words, that list with stained crease marks provided a story of love that we all should be so lucky to find. 

Hello

I haven't been spending the time I'd like to here.  I have a lot of writings and thoughts I'd like to share but haven't had the time to put them in type.

I've decided to start over with a new home page.  I've had issues with the font and typepad (the service I use for my website).  I hate lack of consistency.  I've put my past posts in the "archive" (see link to left).

I've been into writing more poetry lately.  Check out my poetry link.  I have always loved prose poetry and thought about giving it a try.  It's fun to write.

I hope to update more often!

Cheers!