Goodbye, My Lover

Regular readers of this column, a satirical take on my life as a single mom to my two young boys, may not know this, but the truth is I, the Coastal Single Mom, have in actuality never been single.

Yep. I said it.

Throughout the multitude of years where I sat down weekly to muse on how difficult it is to traverse this journey with no hand to hold, no chest to lie on at night and no plus one to ward off awkward stares in public settings, the cold hard truth is: I’ve never really been alone.

Even through all the ‘I’m-going-to-die-a-spinster-and-be-buried-in-the-singles-section-of-the-cemetery’ pity parties.

Even through all the ‘yet-another-parent-teacher-meeting-I-have-to-attend-alone’ hysteria.

Even through all the ‘first-date-which-never-turned-into-a-third-date’ blues.

Even through all the ‘last-single-girl-in-the-world’ crap I’ve been spinning.

The fact is I have never been alone. I’ve never been solo. I’ve never been quite on my own.

Not really. Not until now.

Because tomorrow morning for the first time in 25 years (how’s that for relationship bragging rights!), I will officially have stopped smoking.

Oh! Think it is silly to compare my smoking habit to an actual relationship?

Well, then you are obviously not a smoker.

Only a real smoker knows the extent, the all-consuming devotion with which one loves a cigarette.

And I have loved, loved, LOVED my cigarettes for two and a half decades.

That’s longer than 35% of this population are old.

That’s longer than most people have managed to sustain a marriage. That’s longer than how old most of your children are.

I was 15 when I took my first puff – not out of rebellion or experimentation as most teenagers do, but out of a deep, heart-breaking desire to be comforted.

My stepfather, a pipe smoker, had just passed away, and as I watched my mother cry and my house becoming engulfed with chaos and loss, I walked outside, took his leather tobacco bag, lit his pipe . . . and inhaled.

It smelled just like him – a most delicious combination of rum-and-maple tobacco and Old Spice cologne.

But it was more than the smell that hooked me.

It was what that first puff felt like. It felt familiar. It felt like home. It felt like comfort. It felt like what I suppose meeting your soulmate would feel like.

And I have smoked ever since – throughout high school with all its angst, throughout both my pregnancies with The Trolls, throughout each difficult day and each lonely night, throughout a thousand failed romantic relationships, throughout house moves, city moves, car crashes, job losses, joyous wedding celebrations and painful funerals.

Throughout Covid-19.

Have you ever been in a relationship with a man where, no matter where you are, no matter what you’re going through, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what you look like, he is always there?

I’ve had that. Not with a man. No man can be that great. But cigarettes are.

No longer.

I’ve given it N$13 000 a year, half of my lung capacity, a wardrobe full of clothes that smell nasty, and I’ve had enough.

It’s not me, it’s you.

And so, tomorrow morning, as the country celebrates Heroes Day, I will for the first time attempt to be my own hero too.

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