Habits die hard

Detaching from places, faces, and habits is difficult. Takes time and guts.

I recall a friend trying to quit smoking- unbelievably disturbing. “It’s a habit” she said. “I smoke one after my morning coffee and one after my lunch break”. “I need one to help me go to the toilet”, “I am not addicted, it’s just a habit”. She never cut it….

On a different instance, an ex-boyfriend of mine could not leave his country. “Germany is all I know, it’s home. And why should I even leave? I have everything I need in here”. I could not help but wonder how is he not thirsty to discover new places, new lifestyles, breath new air…

Smoking a cigarette per day is a habit and walking on the same streets every day is a habit. Sleeping with the same person every night is a habit and waking up next to the same person every morning is a habit. Or, is it an addiction?

It begins in a young age; mother’s little baby is growing and needs to go to the kindergarten. From what I have heard, it feels like someone has taken away part of mother’s body and soul. This portrays the very first moment of detachment between the mother and the kid: nine months growing inside her and one year fully depending on her. She cleans, feeds, puts to sleep her little one and –now- both need to learn how to live without each other for a couple of hours.

When you lose someone from your life – death or separation- it is sometimes unbearable. The feeling of familiarity, association, the fact that you can pick up the phone and talk to them is gone. The sense of their skin, hair, the reflection of you through their eyes… Things that once seemed normal, even irritating now sound impossible.

Switching to a lighter level, imagine losing your phone. How on earth are you able to continue your everyday life without using the same applications with the same sequence and the same frequency every day? Drama! I must admit there are many conversations around the eternal question habit vs addiction and I can assure you we are talking about a solid addiction.

The way you enter your office building or your class, the way you leave your bag down, the first website you open when you turn your PC on, it rarely alternates. Mostly we do many things in our daily routine automatically, we don't need to think before doing them: we sit on the couch and we search for the remote control. We see our phone and we check our messages. We put toothpaste on the toothbrush and then we water it without any specific reason behind that. We open the fridge door every time we enter the kitchen. Its a matter of habit.

Friends. Painful. How do you distance yourself from people you share thoughts, feelings, future plans with? I have caught myself multiple times deleting a message I was about to send to someone just because I saw or heard something that we used to discuss together.

I have forced myself back to sleep many Saturdays where I woke up to go to work.

I have turned on the lights in the hallway numerous times without actually needing them.

Bad habits, good habits, healthy and unhealthy habits. Habits die hard they say. Habits are built equally hard I will add. That’s exactly their beauty.