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The AfterEllen.com Huddle: Quitters

With the new year of resolutions, it’s also a time of giving up some bad habits or things that just aren’t doing us justice. So in the spirit of resolving, this week’s huddle is all about quitting. What’s something that you’ve quit?

Elaine Atwell: I quit smoking and I miss it so goddamn much. I was such a good smoker, you guys. But sadly, it was killing me. Like, I cheated a little over the holidays and it is just ASTONISHING how much it fucks with your ability to breathe when you inhale fire.

Erin Faith Wilson: I quit smoking! I had been a pack a day smoker for 10 years so being able to say I am a non-smoker is a really great feeling, not to mention being able to run more than a block without feeling like death:

Lucy Hallowell: I quit following people on social media who drive me bananas. I am so much happier and less rageful.

Dana Piccoli: I think the only thing I’ve ever really quit that was really hard for me was regular soda. That was tough because diet soda is the pits. However after years if drinking it, I can’t handle the sugary syrupyness of regular. Give me my chemicals!

Ali Davis: I quit Diet Coke and diet drinks in general in college and it was really, really hard. I have no idea how much Diet Coke I drank in high school, but I was an academic geek with an after-school job, so it wasn’t pretty. I’m guessing my liver is still mad.

I only quit in college because I would have one medium diet drink every day at lunch and one day the machine was broken and I wanted to hurl a table through the window. Like a surge of animal panic and anger. So I went cold-turkey and pretty much had to white-knuckle it out.

I’ve also given up caffeine a few times-my notes from my 8 a.m. classes one semester are HILARIOUS and filled with dream imagery-and slept well and had insanely vivid dreams. But something always makes me fall back into its sweet, trembling arms. I’m going to go have a hit right now, in fact. And I don’t even care.

Valerie Anne: I quit Diet Coke because it was either no Diet Coke or A HUNDRED DIET COKES and there was no in between. I also quit ballet when I was, like, nine because everything was pink and serious and there was SO MUCH SPINNING. I preferred tap class anyway.

On a less literal note, I quit hiding. When I came out as a lesbian, I also came out as, well, me. I’m a geeky, TV-addicted book nerd. I no longer have any “guilty pleasures” because I no longer feel bad about liking things that make me happy.

Grace Chu: My 5+ cups of coffee a day habit. My stomach lining at some point last year waved the white flag. I went cold turkey for around a month, and the first two weeks were spent half asleep with a dull headache. I’ve eased coffee back into my life but limit it to one cup a day. It’s a good compromise.

Emily McGaughy: I’m that annoying lesbian that quit eating meat. I gave up everything but fish in early 2013 and then became a true vegetarian in the summer of 2015. While it was a bit of a lifestyle change for me, it wasn’t as difficult as I had always assumed it would be. As a kid, I was always weirded out by meat and was super picky about it. I’m also a major animal lover, so vegetarianism really makes sense for me; it’s a way of life that is very close to my heart. I’ve now resigned myself to the fact that I will forever have to field ridiculous questions such as, “So, like, how do you get protein?” and “You’re a vegetarian, but you still eat chicken, right?”

Marcie Bianco: I had to give up butches because I had the glorious habit of finding ones with raging internalized misogyny-and also a phobia of sex after the initial “chase” was over (thanks, SHANE). The final straw was one older “queer”-who, ALARM BELLS, no longer identified as a woman-and who one day interrogated my lesbian identity by saying something totally patronizing, like: “Why do you identify as a lesbian? Oh, I used to identify as one-IN THE ’90s!” Like, fuck you, DUDE. I realized at that moment that I was truly a lesbian: a woman who liked women.

Bridget McManus: Three years ago I turn my back on one of the most important things in my life, one of my longest, truest loves: ice cream. I’m lactose intolerant and ice cream makes me super duper sick but it never mattered because whenever I was sad or happy or awake I would eat ice cream. I went through a serious detox when I kicked it. I was a miserable person for about six weeks because my body was craving milky sugar. And it might seem silly, but my first job at 16 was scooping ice cream at a diner so dessert has really been apart of my life for a long time. Scientists have discovered that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. So now that I’ve kicked sugar I could probably handle cocaine without any issues.

Miranda Meyer: I have abandoned many, many things for the sake of my mental health-jobs, hobbies, continents-generally not because there was anything particularly toxic or wrong about whatever situation I was leaving, but because it was wrong for me cognitively at that time. (The day I finally accepted that I really just can’t do office environments, regardless of how great the job is otherwise, was kind of scary but also a huge step forward.) My entire adult life has in some ways been a process of figuring out what this brain I’ve got will actually work with and what it will tolerate for a few weeks before embarking on an escalating campaign of self-sabotage, which means a lot of trial and error. And, therefore, a loooot of quitting things.

Anna Pulley: [I quit things] all the time! (And for similar reasons as Miranda). I quit books when they aren’t doing anything for me. I no longer watch every terrible gay movie because I am desperate to see two women kiss on screen. I quit yoga after five years because of a hamstring injury that (still) hasn’t gone away. I’ve quit coffee many times because of health reasons (like Grace) then started back up with a more moderate habit.

Quitting women who are bad for me is probably the most difficult, and still takes far longer to end it than it should. But ain’t that life? It’s hard to tune out all the good feelings someone instills in you, even if they are heaped with bad ones.

Trish Bendix: I was terrible at piano and guitar and, while OK at the french horn, it wasn’t to be my life’s work. As much as I wanted to be an amazing musician, it didn’t work out for me, and I’ve come to terms with that.

Kim Hoffman: When I was a kid, there was all this parental pressure to get your kids involved in every single activity under the sun-gymnastics, piano, dance, day camp. I was painfully shy in social settings-I was one mild threat from a bully away from peeing my pants at these types of places. I would inevitably say, “I can’t do it, I wanna quit.” And my mom would be like, “OK fine.” My dad would be like, “OK fine, give up then, just give up, why don’t you?” The guilt ate at me. I even quit slumber parties. I’d call my mom to come get me at midnight after all the games ended and the girls were in their sleeping bags and I was bored. I didn’t hesitate to say “nope” as a kid. I was outta there. And I think what looked like “giving up” was eventually given more credit, because I crafted my own little world behind my bedroom door, and I was constantly creating and writing-doing things that made me feel good. I couldn’t get that feel-good vibe from a foam pit at Gymnastics World, and someone had to finally embrace that truth with me.

What have you quit?

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