I should be able to do ANYTHING now, Part 1

During my smokerdom (smokerhood? smokership?), at many points I thought about things I thought I should be doing to improve myself. Two examples are exercising (specifically swimming) and wearing contact lenses again.

I am far from being obese. Just a bit flabby. I would say I have a "beer belly," (although I've hardly drank any beer for the last few years), "love handles," and a "hank" (the fat under the chin).

A lot of excuses led back to smoking. I didn't have the lung capacity to endure a lot of physical exercise. Swimming seemed to me to be the ideal cardiovascular workout, because you seem to use most of the muscles in your body and there is no hard impact on your bones and joints like there is in running, for example. A big part of being able to swim is to deal with the breathing limitations. It's difficult to breathe during physical exercise, and one has to concentrate to develop some sort of new breathing pattern that is in harmony with the movement. Swimming restricts the breathing even more so, since at many points in each movement the mouth and nostrils may be submerged in water, or are about to be, or at least being splashed.

I used to wear contact lenses, but over time, I weaned off of them until I wore glasses full time.

My vision is so poor that I don't qualify for the reportedly comfortable soft lenses. I was prescribed rigid gas-permeable lenses. These are smaller than the iris.

When my eyes dried up, which was often, the lens would slip off the iris and lodge itself in the corner of my eye. These tiny, concave discs would stick in areas of the eye that are flatter than the curvature of the iris, allowing the sharp edges of the lens to iritate the whites and corners of my eyes.

Painful and disorientating and therefore dangerous, as this always seemed to happen while I was driving.

This worsened as my smoking increased in frequency. In order to smoke while I drive, I had to have the windows down. Smoke and wind drying up the eyes.

Even worse, I was going to bars more often. In those days, smoking was allowed. My eyes didn't stand a chance.

My god, right now it's so difficult to imagine hanging out in a place so filled with so much smoke, and enjoy myself. Honestly, even as a chain smoking feind, I was glad when they banned smoking in bars. It's so much better to smoke in a ventilated area. I'm sure for people who live in areas where it get rains a lot, or actually snows, it might have been difficult...

Anyway, the contact lenses spent more and more time in their sensory deprivation chambers. Soon enough, they were abandoned for good, as I upgraded to more sturdy frames for my incredibly thick glasses.