Day 7

   So today is day 7 of not smoking, and it is 2 days before to go back to work in the park.  These last 6 days have been interesting.   The first 3 days there were tears, twitchy sleep and crazy dreams.  The last 3 days have been forgetting about it for minutes at a time.  It is not the very first thought on my mind each day and it is not the very last thing I think about before sleep.  I am feeling good.  I feel proud of myself.
   Yesterday I was angry at a situation I was in and thought at one point, if I only had a cigarette.  My rational side took over and I knew that if I smoked I would still be pissed off at the situation and on top of that I would be angry that I smoked.  That is my rational side.
   I am not always rational.  I have thoughts like, if I get through the winter season in Yellowstone (3 months long) I should have a cigarette and then see if I am really addicted to it and if I am not I can be one of the smokers who only smoke a couple of cigarettes a month.  I also have thoughts like,  I should have just one drag and if it really tastes that bad then I am not a smoker any more.  That is my irrational side.
   I am glad that my rational side has been louder this first week.  I will continue to listen to it.  And when my irrational side starts getting louder that my rational side I have a great backup system in place.  It is my family.  It is my friends.  I am happy to be at day 7 and looking forward to day 8.

No More Whining...Maybe

      The last 2 times I have written I have been in a very bad mood, mainly from the fact that I hadn't had a cigarette.  Well I am in the beginning of my 5th day and I am feeling better.  But even that makes me nervous because I don't want to let my guard down.
      But soon I will be back in Yellowstone and I will have better things to write about then wanting  a cigarette...at least I hope I will.

Quitting Sucks

So for my one or two readers that might check this more than once every six months, I am really going to try to avoid the "This is me quitting smoking".  It is all I think about right now and also I am not in Yellowstone for another week so it is what I am all about right now.
I hate being a smoker so much, even though all I can think about right now is how I would love to smoke just one more cigarette.  I regret my last cigarette 2 nights ago because I did not "enjoy" it enough.  I should have taken my time and really thought about what I was trying to give up and really enjoyed it and then smoked it down to the very last drag and then tried to smoke it some more and then I would have been done smoking if I only would have done that.
That is what goes through my mind.  I am wondering if I can really do this.  Today has been hard, full of sunflower seeds and chocolate and skittles and diet coke...but no cigarettes yet.  Not today.  Hopefully not tomorrow either, or the day after, or the day after that.

I am back!!

      So we have the Internet again.  I wish I would have documented my summer and then I could have made a ton of posts about it,  but I never thought ahead like that.

      Patty and I are going back to work in Old Faithful again this winter.  Patty starts work tomorrow and I will start work in a week.  We also have my sister working with us this winter in Yellowstone.   I would write more but I have a very one track mind right now.  This is my first full day without a cigarette in a long time.  I am trying to quit.  I have tried to quit before without success.

      The other day I was talking to my sister Michelle about all of this and she asked what my triggers were.  I almost said, "What isn't a trigger?"  I have been a smoker for 14 years, always a half a pack to a pack a day.  I can think of almost nothing else right now.  I have been told that it will pass.  I actually know it does because I have gone past this point in the quitting process before.  It is just hard to think that there will be anything else  but the feeling I have now.  I am whining, I know.  And just think, this is only the first day!

Computer Trouble

I just wanted to write this little post to say I have not given up on writing this at all. My computer crashed, or at least we think it did. So right now I am on a community computer in a dorm at Old Faithful. I will start up with writing this again as soon as we can get our computer figured out or make it to town to get a new one. So to you Michelle and my one or two other readers, I will keep up with this.

I have so much to write about, the end of the winter and my great trip to Cape Cod but it is the end of the season and all I am doing is working and sleeping. I promise to catch up for my 6 followers as soon as I can. I did take this picture about an hour ago and that is a regular No Parking sign. I just wanted to show how much snow we have gotten this year.

As Yellowstone Turns

"We are the biggest dysfunctional family in Wyoming for 3 months every winter."

A friend of mine is very fond of saying that, and I smile every time because it is true. There are about 120 employees who work here in the winter. We work together, live together, play together, dance together, fight together, and in some cases, sleep together. It can be a very intense environment, especially at this time of the year. We have been here for over 2 months and some of us have not left the park, some of us have not seen a car on wheels. Cabin fever is starting to set in. You can almost feel it in the air.

I know I am making it sound as if we are all best friends here but that is actually not the case. We all have our groups of people we choose to spend most of our time with, and there are people we know the names of and where they work and that is it. Some of us don't even like one another for various reasons but what makes us a family is that we all are here dealing with the same environment as everyone else.

Imagine you date someone for 2 years and things don't end well. You work with this person (common anywhere, not just here). Now imagine you are in the employee dining room eating and this person is there, you go to the employee pub and they are there, you walk the halls of your dorm and they are there, you are skiing to or from work and they are there...you get the picture. It's not just couples, or ex-couples who deal with that, it's friend, co-workers, managers and line employees, everyone. We all see each other everyday. This is the time of year when you might get sick of seeing everyone everyday.

With this intensity comes something else though. An appreciation for the community, deep friendships that may have taken years to develop anywhere else, a love for the park that you might not fully realize over the busy summers. This is where the Yellowstone Family is really at, and this family is not just contained by the boarders the the park, it extends everywhere that that former Yellowstoners are at. For example we raise money every winter for a worthy charity but this year the money that we raise is going to an awesome man who has worked here in the park for 30 years or more and who has found out he has cancer. There is also this huge benefit in West Yellowstone in March and Yellowstoners from all over Montana and Wyoming will be there to donate money and enjoy this person as part of the community. And that is just a small example of this place and its heart.

We may be one huge dysfunctional family but its one that I am proud to be a part of, much like my real family.