50 days since I quit smoking. This is the longest I've gone without a cigarette since 2002. I've been here before though - in the spring of 2010, after quitting for 40 days for Lent and then being egged on for 10 more by a colleague and a friend. On the day that I reached half century then, I was out shooting the breeze and decided to lighten up, re-igniting my relationship with the old flame and ending that run.
I think the same could be said for me quitting it as well. I just got bored of it. With regards to health, I've never believed that it ever did me any good, though that never stopped me before. More than anything else, I think that the romanticism of the entire thing just wore off. Saying stuff like "I smoke because I want to die at least as much as I want to live" gets old when you've said it to yourself too many times. And I realised that if you have to keep making excuses to do something (and this applies to anything, mind you) then maybe you shouldn't be doing that in the first place.
So this is it, it would seem. Here's to many nights that this decade old friend has kept me company, nights that sometimes turned into mornings for reasons good, nights that turned into mornings for reasons bad. Adios, amigo. Thanks for all the fish.