I’ve been calling her Isobel on here for so long, sometimes I have a hard time keeping her real name straight when I’m talking to people who’ve already met her.
Zoë.
She is exactly her name.
We found out after she’d already been born and named that it means life, and I can’t think of a single more descriptive word for her. Except for maybe unique, but I think I’d have to change her name to Uniqua and as soon as she outgrew the Back-ardagans phase, she might be a little pissed off.
As it is, she might be pissed enough that her parents were both hipster (and for some reason nostalgic) enough to give her middle names belonging to grandparents. Jessica and James. James was my father’s name, so I won’t go into how much I might regret giving her that, but come on, WTF were we thinking? Zoë Jessie James. Like, she’s a fucking cowboy, or something? A renegade?
Ugh, I hate we’re-cool-parents names, like that.
Isobel was our second choice. Isobel Magdalena, to be specific. We have issues. At least her real name was based on real people – the runner up? Songs by Bjork and A Perfect Circle, respectively.
It might have been worse if she’d been a boy.
On the list was Hayden James, Hunter William James, Riley Stockton, Riley Keenan, etc. Basically any two- or three-name combo that fit the “we love Hayden, Hunter S. Thompson and Tool, and are planning on raising a wanna-be bad-ass alterna-douchebag son” profile.
Don’t ask me where Riley came from. But thankfully, once we moved into my old apartment and I found out that the dog down the hall had that name, I couldn’t let us go there. Stockton, sure, but a human name that someone gave their dog?! Never.
True story: I was sort of seeing a girl when I was 20ish and I bought her her first tattoo. She got a little 4-like symbol on the side of her curvy hip, in a location sexy enough that only the most priviledged would see it (and of course) where she could hide it from her parents. According to her, the symbol represented our shared astrological sign (sagittarius). Damn those beautiful Polish girls.
Anyway.
I got my third tattoo that day, just inside my right hipbone – a Hebrew symbol that I’d been told meant luck. The artist gave it to me free because I took off my pants to get it done. My girlfriend’s wasn’t free because she wouldn’t take off her pants until later that night.
Ahem.
I found out six years later, after Zoë had been born, after I’d been told that I’d never have kids, after I was convinced that I wouldn’t have them because it looked like only my right ovary had any gumption to it and that I had the hormones of an eight year old girl, that the symbol means living and is related to the word chaim, meaning life.
My hip, right over where half of what she was grown out of was expelled, knew her name five years before she was even conceived. It’s a spooky – and I’m not convinced completely coincidental – thing.
Point is, I’m getting rid of the Isobel tag. I’m just going to start calling her here what she is: my fate, my miracle, my life.
Zoë.
I started smoking when I was 12.
I quit for a while when I was with the rockstar ex – sometimes I still snuck some, but for the most part, I was attached to him and the fact that he would leave me if I smoked (or drank, or did drugs. Ahem.) meant more to me than appearing a bad-ass. I bought my first new pack the day we broke up. And a 26er and an 1/8th.
Anyway.
I’ve been happily smoking for the past decade. I even met The Ex, Isobel’s dad, because we bonded over cigarettes in the smoking area of the parking lot each of our warehouses shared.
Smoking’s done a lot for me: kept me thin, cut back on my appetite, gave me a low birth-weight baby who almost tore me a completely new one (just think, if I hadn’t smoked while I was pregnant, she would have been bigger, and then that 3rd degree tear might’ve been more severe).
It’s also helped my horrible blood circulation, yellowed my teeth more than I can solely blame a history of bulimia and poor hygiene for, aided in the crow’s feet and forehead creases I see everytime I look in the mirror.
It killed my father – something that I’m not altogether unhappy about – and it could do the same for me. Hopefully, my slate would be clean enough that no part of Isobel would get satisfaction watching me suffer if such a shitty fate were to befall me.
Anyway.
Last night at 2:18am, I had my last cigarette.
This is the longest I’ve gone in a decade without one drag, puff or french kiss from the bum on the corner to suck the tobacco fumes from his lungs. I’m actually doing okay. The cravings haven’t been bad at all, and idleness is my only issue.
I think it’s because I’m attempting it for a completely different reason than I ever have before. And I’m using the patch.
I’m not quitting smoking because of my health. Or the health of my daughter (I think we both know I’m a little invested in that, once you get past the whole “smoked while pregnant” judgements you’re having).
It’s not to extend my life, or ensure that I can run a marathon, or that my bones stay strong, or decrease my risk of blood clot when going back on the pill (ps. I’ll never go back on the pill, FYI).
I’m not trying to or considering conceiving in a universe made up of reality, and I certainly don’t really give a shit about the colour of my lungs or my risk of heart disease.
And it’s not for the logical, either. It’s not because I’ve tallied how much money I could be putting into paying off debts or into Isobel’s education instead of buying smokes.
Plain and simple? I’m quitting because I’m vain.
I don’t want those fucking wrinkles. I want better teeth. I want to consider laser hair removal on like, 90% of my face and even if you think it’s an old wives’ tale, I blame smoking in part for the fine blonde hairs that cover every inch of it and the eating disorders for the rest of my body.
It’s a hassle, always having to remember to have enough smokes to last me through the night and into the morning until Isobel will be ready to leave the house – because I can’t run out at 11pm to get more if I run out. It sucks, having to rifle through my new purse that doesn’t have the perfect pocket for my pack and lighter like the old one did.
And the big ticket? I want a signature scent.
I used to have this friend, and any time you were around her, any time you went to her house, or anything she’d had around for a few days came into your space, you could smell her. She smelled of hippies, but in a soft, feminine way and just the scent catching you unaware could be incredibly soothing.
I want that. I want to walk into my apartment after a morning outside to smell my smell. I want people to link me with lavender and vanilla.
I need every nook of mine to scream good-smelling-girl, to replace that girl would was mocked in elementary school, called Smoky the Bear, because she always smelled of her father’s loose tobacco, the smoke of which he’d blow right into her face after taking a drag from his home-rolled aluminum foil pipe.
I don’t want to be that dirty child, anymore.
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Now playing: Fiona Apple – Never Is a Promise
via FoxyTunes
