Don't settle.
In the news yesterday, HK bans smoking. This new law is not only confined to confined spaces but no smoking is allowed in public places including parks and playgrounds as well. Cool huh? I applaud thsi decision. Some years back, at that time I was still pregnant with Mika, we went to KLCC park and on the walk there, I saw boy and girl walking with each other. Boy was smoking, and girl was inhaling the smoke that wind blew towards her. My God! I would never put up with that. Never!
Then, at the park itself. Grown men with small brains were smoking to their hearts' content, not caring about the kids in the playground or the pregnant women (myself included) or other people in their presence. It's not enough that they don't care about their own health, they don't care about other people's either.
What has it got to do with not settling? If you hate the act of smoking, would you marry a smoker? For the sake of love, would you sacrifice your own health? Your family's? And later, when you have kids, their health as well?
My uncle is a smoker. Still is. Said he'd quit when he got married. Didn't. Said he'd quit when his wife gave birth. Didn't. He has 3 kids and he's still smoking.
Do you know that you can get leukemia from inhaling cigarrette smoke? A child died at 13 of leukemia while a smoking dad died at the old age of 90? You could say it's fate. Old man was healthy as a hoot.
My husband was a smoker. When I first got to know him, he told me he'd quit smoking. Then one day, at a restaurant, I made him move from one table to another which was smoke-free, he realised that I really hated cigarettes and anything to do with it. I told him that I had warned my students that they had better not let me catch them smoking for I would snip their cigarettes right under their noses. He said, "Remember I told you that I'd quit smoking?"
Me: Uh hmm
Him: Well, I'm still quitting.
I have always liked his sense of humour. It tickled me that he was still quitting.
I said, "Fine. Make sure that when you smoke, you are not irresponsible like the people behind us who doesn't care if because of them, someone loses a family member or friend or someone special. Make sure you hole yourself up in a room where you can smell your own second hand smoke. Make sure when you get cancer, you get it early so that your widow can remarry. As long as you don't harm others but yourself, you can smoke to death for all I care."
He wanted to know if I was serious about not marrying a smoker. I said yeah, a smoker doesn't even love himself. How can he love others?
He had the gall to say if that was the case, I'd probably end up a spinster coz all men smoke. Then I'd be happy to be a spinster than to marry a smoker. Plus, he's wrong. Not all men smoke. My brother doesn't. My dad doesn't. And his friend doesn't!
When he wanted to know where he stood, I told him, we'd always be good friends as I would never marry a smoker.
Amazingly, in the days to come, he quitted smoking. The next day, he visited his sister who had cervical or was it ovarian cancer? She died some days after his visit to her. It could be that. I don't know. What I know is that I didn't settle. I said I would never marry a smoker and I didn't.
