Afraid quitting would make you boring?

You had a fear you never said out loud, because it sounds silly next to money and health. You worried quitting would sand you down. Careful. Beige. The person who talks about hydration. Easier to be around and less fun to be. What if the interesting part of you was borrowed?

Take inventory. Your humor's still here, and so is the timing. You still hold the same opinions too loudly at the wrong dinner. You still laugh at the joke half a second before anyone else gets it. Not one of those jokes came from a cigarette. All it did was bill you for the breaks between them.

What left was the leash. The standing appointment. The low hum under every conversation, counting down to the next one. That hum wasn't your personality. It was a tax on it. Switch it off and there's more of you in the room. God put every one of those specifics in you by hand. Not one of them left with the hum.

If something did soften, look closer before you miss it. Some of what you called edge was irritation between cigarettes. Losing that is losing a toothache, not a trait. Go spend the real edge on someone today. Say the funny thing. Argue about the movie. The person you were scared to lose is the one reading this.