Dark secret

Lets go to the beginning....

So about a month ago, Honey and I decided to leave both the younger kids with Ms. Thang (paying her a hefty sum that really worked out well for me since she bought jewelry with most of it and that is the only thing we wear in the same size) and I went to work with him for the very first time. He's a truck driver, so I got to see some neat scenery (deer!) and ate at a little diner I never knew existed ($5 for a plate twice the size of one at Chili's) and I had. a. BLAST!


I rode in his old truck, but this is his brand new one. 120 miles on it and the plastic was still on the seats. He is in heaven!

At first it was really hard for me to let go of my everyday responsibilities. I am never without at least one of my children. I felt odd and out of my element. But soon, the excitement of riding in such a huge truck (bouncy seats on the dirt roads just like the back of a school bus), and the tingle of pride that my man can maneuver such a powerful, complicated machine (backing it up into places I wouldn't try in a car) started to divert my attention from the chores and kids I left behind me.
He has Sirius Radio and we flipped between 80s and 90s, singing what we knew, remembering where we were. I was feeling really nostalgic, and a little flirty and young. Characteristics I'd buried with motherhood and had almost forgotten were there. We talked, we laughed, and in the quiet times I did a little people watching, which was easy because I was at the perfect height to peer into each car we passed, taking guesses at where they were going, their relationships to each other, and hoping to see something I shouldn't (I'd be shocked and disgusted of course) but there wasn't anything worth mentioning lol.

I was feeling free of the children and able to do "adult" things. I am always censored around the kids. No cursing, no edgy jokes, no flamboyant flirting and for the first time in a long time I embraced the un-kid-friendly me and let a little of that trucker mentality take hold.
For those of you imagining that I was flashing my boobs at family filled minivans, getting wasted and watching porn on the TV in the back cab, or smoking cigars, skirt hiked up, with my bare feet propped up on the dashboard, you're 2/3rds wrong.

I used to be a smoker. I started smoking cigarettes around the age of 23 or so. I quit for the pregnancy and birth of my son, embarrassingly starting back up again just after he finished breast-feeding. I quit again to conceive, carry and birth Cutecumber. Now that she is two, I can say I had finally beat it. I rarely craved one (3 times a year-ish) and I hated the smell, the cost and the hold they used to have on me.

Honey smokes small cigars while he is on the road, never bringing them home. He asked if I minded that he smoked a bit of one with the window cracked open while I road with him that day. I told him to go for it and as I watched him puff on it a few times, never really having smoked a cigar, feeling uncensored with no children to see me, nostalgic with Dave Matthews telling me to Crash, an old suppressed part of me asked him to let me try a few puffs.

And I loved it.

It was completely guilt free. I knew it was a one time thing. When would I be away from the children again? I took advantage and I hiked up the knee length skirt I was wearing, showing a bit of leg that hadn't seen the sun in years, threw my bare feet up on that dash board and lived in the moment.
Honey enjoyed it as much as I did. We've become so predictable, it was fun to be someone I hadn't been in a long time. It made me think of our future, when the kids are grown and gone. I'm glad it's him that I will be with. We always have fun together, when we actually have time together. I can't wait to see who we are then.

When we came home, and Ms Thang told me how much she did NOT enjoy my outing, and the younger two told me how much they did NOT enjoy their big sister, and reality of my everyday life came flooding back, I was happy to be me again. As much as I enjoyed my time away from them, I love my time WITH them.

But a few days later, during a rough day (just found out the van AC went out, our impending vacation was on hold) I went out into the shop to look for a repair manual and spotted half of a cigar.
Just one or two puffs, to feel free like I did that day.
Then on our vacation, when the kids are asleep and it's just us two.
And now, I'm going out before the kids are up with my morning coffee, and again after lunch, and again during nap time.
I really need to quit, but I forgot how many chores and errands I can get done on the nicotine/caffeine drug combo. I'm losing weight too. It's already got it's claws in me.