Throughout my entire life, I never imagined I would be a smoker. The concept completely revolted me. But, day by day, as soon as I entered UMBC, I became to susceptible to the sweet release granted by nicotine. From October 2007 and onward, I have smoked, roughly, a pack of cigarettes a day. Although I know that this habit has serious health consequences, I’ve always fallen back into the mold of smoking after quitting. I feel as if this is due to me cultivating the places I associate with smoking. The 7/11 on Fredrick Road, the Royal Farms on Wilkens, The balcony outside of Chesapeake, my westhill apartment, my Walker apartment, the nook outside of the fine arts building, under my balcony at home, inside my garage, my Dad’s house. These are all places that I intrinsically link with the act of smoking cigarettes and that’s part of the reason I have so much trouble quitting. If I quit, my preservation of these places was for naught. I’ll never go to these places again and never experience the rush of memories and feelings that I’m so accustomed to. If I want to quit, I need to remove these places from my consious and forge new places, new memories, and cultivate something different. Something New. Why Do I smoke? Because I’m addicted. But I also smoke because it’s a link to my past, it’s a link to good memories and I don’t want to lose those. But I kind of do, because one place is truly like the rest. The 7/11 is like a lot of convience stores, the outside of one building is a lot like the outside of another. The only unique definition I put on these places that cultivates them is my own. But it’s my definition.
Point: Cultivating and Preserving Places is typically a good experience, but for me, its negative.
Word Count: 299
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