Regrets

Regrets – yeah, so what, I’ve had a few. You ever get that sensation like you’re watching yourself when you’re doing something that you know is completely stupid? That kind of outer-body reckless social endangerment? That’s me, pretty much all the time. I look back and wonder how the hell I came to this point with any friends at all. I’ve been an inconsiderate, unsympathetic, drunken, obnoxious, uncontrollable, selfish twat. I’ve done just about everything on FHM’s list of 101 Things You’re Going To Wish You’d Never Done Afterwards – one of which was ‘purchase this issue of FHM’.

On New Years Eve I managed to blow all of my myriad regrets out of the water. I did something so heinous that it is now literally* eating me up inside (*not to be taken literally). I’ve broken hearts, bones and promises before, still I’ve never felt as sorry as I do now. It seemed harmless at the time – fuck, everyone was doing it – but now I’m left with the sickening consequences. It’s killing me, I’m just going to come out and say it - on New Years Eve 2006 I made a resolution to stop smoking.

There! It’s out now. The world knows. Somehow I still don’t see myself sleeping any easier. I’m sick to my stomach. I couldn’t work it out at first. I blamed my hangover for the first 24 hours. Then I woke up wondering why I couldn’t be fucked getting out of bed. Why, when 2007 had promised so much adventure and opportunity only days before, was I ready to crawl into a hole and shell peanuts with my face? Why does my life suddenly feel like a blackhole of pointlessness and whoredom? Perhaps, with the wisdom of another year under my belt, I’d finally seen the truth!?

We had dinner at Soul Mamma’s in St. Kilda. I was a narky, anxious bundle of unrest. Everything around me made want to vomit my own sick. The waiters, the clientele, the way the strawberry on my pannacotta left a pink mark on the cream. I was furious. Then after tea we went on a walk down St. Kilda pier. I wanted to punch every person walking on it. I wanted to rip down the sunset like an NKOTB poster, spitting and stamping on it for being uninspiring and predictable. I wanted to break something beautiful, ruin something that someone else had worked very hard on, and eat something ever-so-slightly sweet – though that often happens after a big meal.

I was practically foaming at the mouth when the penny finally dropped. It was when I reached down to pick up that penny that I finally realised that I was out of sorts. Hang on, I remembered, I like being pretentious and indulgent – forcing down vegetarian food, all the while wishing it has more types of animals in it. I like the pier and its tourists, with their accents, loose morals and their tiny, tiny shorts. I like the sunsets and their dangling orbs and spectacular spectrums. To be honest, I don’t even really have anything against NKOTB – they’ve got the right stuff. The problem was the complete lack of nicotine from my system.

Even now, hours later, all I can do is sit and cry and sweat and wait. Nicotine patches are for pussies, and only lesbians and baseball players chew gum (...interestingly a Venn diagram of lesbians and baseballers is pretty much a perfect circle). I'm doing this cold turkey - largely for bragging rights - and so help me Julio Iglesias if I don't piss and moan about how hard it is the whole fucking way. I'm the one who has to live his life knowing the rest of the world thinks he's a no good fucking quitter. Regrets - yeah, so what, I've got a few.