The first thing to go was cigarettes. I think if I had been a heavy smoker, it would have been easier. I’d have stopped sooner because it would have been obvious and urgent. I justified it because I was one of those infuriating situational smokers. You weren’t going to find me standing out in the snow to get a fix. I think the last cigarette I smoked was with my step-sister on the patio of my step-dad’s apartment the day after he died. Before that one, I’m not sure — weeks or months. Still, I had been doing it since I was in high school. It was delusional and disgusting, and I hated everything about it (except actually doing it), but, sure, I wasn’t a smoker-smoker.
Here are a few more things that I’ve opted out of: coloring my gray hair, alcohol, animal products, cable news, and boyfriends. Each of these lettings-go was inevitable — like molting. They just don’t make sense for me. They don’t contribute. They don’t align. They require an effort of cognitive dissonance that I can’t maintain. I reached a tipping point with each of these things, and there are still more teetering on the edge (like a sticky doom-scrolling habit, for one).
After grasping at them for so long — some more tightly than others — I’m amazed how almost effortless it was to drop them, like brushing a crumb off my shirt. As easy as it was initially, I will get some panicky aftershocks: “Oh shit, what did you do? Pizza is over!” And for a minute I’ll scramble to figure out if I can save pizza, but I can’t. It really is over.
The more lifestyle detritus I shed and the more aligned I become with my values, the more space and time open up. It also becomes immediately clear that honoring this freedom requires a strength and skill that have atrophied from distraction. I’m starting to see a blank canvas that’s always been right here in front of me, and grieving time lost now that I’ve noticed it. The challenge now is to learn to engage it with intention and creativity. It’s like the post-pink-cloud phase of overcoming an addiction, when you realize you can’t build a life around just not doing a thing. You have do something now.
The great opting-out is ongoing, and I’m carefully filling space and time with things that call me and learning to recognize the subtle ick of inner discord. I have a feeling the canvas is going to remain blank for a bit, but I see it.
Ilse Thompson 