So I’ve been gone. For a long, long time. But I promise that I have a good reason – reasons, actually.
We did get our internet back after about a week of intermittent outages. Then, we found out my boyfriend was deploying. He’s in the Army, which is how we ended up in Washington in the first place. The Army is still doing year-long deployments. A year is just a long time no matter how you look at it. For many reasons, we decided to get married before his departure date. Both the marriage and the deployment meant that we had family in and out for several weeks.
Amidst all the chaos, we tried to take advantage of the time we had left, which meant a lot less time on the computer for me. I have absolutely no regrets about that, but I feel terribly out of touch. So much has happened while I was living in my bubble!
There was another unexpected side effect to being as busy as we were: It was so hard to stay green, sustainable and balanced.
- The first thing to go out the window was the way we ate. I am embarrassed to say that I consumed more fast food in the last month than I have the rest of the year combined. And that includes my cross-country road trip. When we didn’t eat fast food, we often ate out, grabbed take-out, or – the worst in my opinion – ate junk food at home. (Don’t ever let someone tell you that you can’t live on popcorn. You can, at least for a month.) We spent a bunch of money, generated a bunch of trash, and felt like crap. It was not a healthy month for us.
(Even when I did better with my choices, it still wasn’t sustainable. Come on already, Jamba Juice, get biodegradable cups! You’re bumming me out and hurting your image.)
Aside from eating and all the food-related trash, it was also much harder to stay on top of some of my more sustainable habits. Some things that went out the window:
- Buying used. Buying new is so much faster.
- Supporting local businesses. One stop shopping can be much more convenient, especially when you’re short on time.
- Making my own bread. I apologize, sour dough culture, for killing you so many times this month.
- Product research. I’m usually very good about paying attention to where my money goes. This month, I just went out and bought what I needed.
- Exercise! How can I have gone a whole month without doing anything outside of walking my dogs.
But being human means that, no matter how hard you try, you will sometimes fall short of your own hopes and expectations. All the ups and downs of life are going to happen, whether we are prepared or not. We are a society conditioned for the path of least resistance, which is very easy to wander down when the going gets busy. And, clearly, all my good habits need a little more practice. Including blogging!
So, I am sorry, world, for my absence from sustainable and responsible citizenship, from news reading, and from actively dialoguing about the things that I care about. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but in the meantime, I’ll do my best to build good habits for next time.
