When memory romances the cigarette

Sooner or later, memory starts editing. It hands you a golden little film: the cigarette on that summer evening, with that friend, in that easier chapter of your life — and something in you aches for it. Notice what the film leaves out: the cough, the cost, the smell, the self-disgust, the times you reached for one without wanting it because you simply had to. Mostly, it leaves out the cage.

That's not lying, exactly; it's how memory works. It keeps the peak and deletes the price. But nostalgia for nicotine is grief for a thing that never existed — you don't miss the cigarette; you miss being younger, or less burdened, or with people you loved. The cigarette just happened to be in the room. It's taking credit for the sunlight.

So when the golden film plays, don't argue with it — just finish it. Roll the deleted scenes: the morning ones, the desperate ones, the math of what it took. Trust your records, not your edits. You kept those records for exactly this moment.

The good things in that memory — the evening, the friends, the peace — none of them required a cigarette then, and none of them do now. Thank God, they're all still available to the free version of you. Go make a memory that won't need editing.