The image of a cancer-ridden lung on a cigarette pack doesn't bother me. In fact, when I see it while lighting up with my friends, I just smile and keep going. It's not that I'm blind to the risks , I know them. But at the moment, smoking isn't about harm. It's about something else. Something quieter. It's about conversations. Vulnerability. Connection.

We might be inhaling toxins, sure , but we're also exhaling barriers. Slowly peeling away the layers of ourselves and each other in a cloud of shared silence.

I wasn't always a smoker. In my bachelor's, I didn't even touch one. It was during my master's that I had my first cigarette , and strangely, something shifted. People began trusting me more. I began trusting them more. Conversations ran deeper. Plans happened more often. Somehow, standing in a circle with others, cigarette in hand, made me feel part of something. Not just included , understood.

There's an unspoken world smokers share , a kind of emotional third space that doesn't exist in libraries, classrooms, or DMs. It's raw. Candid. Sometimes awkward. Always honest.

I've met people I would've never otherwise spoken to , people whose eyes I would've never held, whose secrets I would've never heard. And maybe I wouldn't have shared mine either. It's like peeling an onion , each smoke break feels like another layer removed. Sometimes, it stings. But you keep going.

I know how this sounds. I know the warnings. The dangers. I'm not advocating smoking , not really. Health matters. Balance matters. I believe in honouring your body, truly. But I also believe in honouring your experience of the world , even the complicated parts.

There's a kind of intimacy in sharing a cigarette , like a sweet kiss between strangers. It brings people onto the same page, if only for a few minutes.

Is it social pressure? Peer pressure? Maybe. But the real question is: how okay are you with that grey? How okay are you with living in a space where things aren't black and white , just real?

Today, I met a new colleague. We didn't talk much. But after meeting her, I walked straight to my desk and wrote this , in the office, no less.

Life is an onion. It'll make your eyes burn as you peel its layers. And trust me, there will be many. But sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll find someone else peeling alongside you , smoke curling around your shared truths.

Just know that.