I started smoking when I was a teen and quit 20 times. I still love the occasional cigarette.

"The day I turned 16, I picked up two things - my driver's license and a $1.98 pack of Kool 100 Milds from a gas station I knew would sell to me. It was 1995, and I still remember the freedom and rebellion alive in my heart while my hair blew in the wind. From the window of her mom's LeBaron convertible, my friend and I flicked our cigarettes and seemingly our adolescent troubles with them."

"I worried I let smoking become a costume, like a suit of melancholic glamour that gave me an emotional shorthand for feeling tragic. I slipped into character when I needed to feel sometimes powerful, but more often undone. By the time I hit my 20s, I also recognized that some of my most meaningful conversations were shared over an ashtray."

A person began smoking at 16, combining a new driver's license with a cheap pack of Kool 100 Milds and feeling freedom and rebellion. Smoking evolved into an emotional costume and shorthand for feeling tragic, sometimes offering moments of power but often leaving the person undone. The habit became social, with meaningful conversations shared over an ashtray and shared cigarettes bonding people. Public health measures and media restrictions in the 2000s reduced smoking's visibility. A type 1 diabetes diagnosis at 27 prompted an immediate quit, though visual cues of others smoking repeatedly triggered return to cigarettes.

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