Can’t I Just Be Gray?

I’m interested in environmental issues, among other things, so I write about them as I write about everything else that moves me. I try to do my best in my everyday life – day after day to keep this world green and safe. BUT I’M NOT PERFECT. 

But who is?

There are the climate protectors and the climate polluters. The frequent flyers and the non-flyers – we are looking for a term for everything. What has actually happened that we only want to see everything in black or white?

What about all the people who take a long-awaited flight a year because they have the desire to see their families – or the world – despite the climate crisis? What about those who eat organic meat from time to time or those who buy vegan products frequently, but like to crack an egg every now and then? And would it really be so much worse for the environment to go cloth shopping at Walmart twice a year instead of buying from hip eco-labels that I can’t afford?

Life is harmful to the environment. Am I seriously not allowed to go to the environmental demo just because I can only get there by car? Or worse, eat a gluten-free Braunschweiger sandwich on the way there?

Black or White! Where is the gray?

A lot of it reminds me of the past when I didn’t tell my grandma about my party plans because she would have been against it for sure. So instead of telling her the truth, we had a rather superficial conversation, so the ‘real thing’ never came up. I don’t know about you, but I shudder at a community in which no one wants to say openly and honestly what they do and think. And if you ask me (and you don’t) we are halfway there.

I don’t find it surprising that the vast majority of people online only post superficial well-being quotes, at the sight of which I usually want to jump into my mountain of laundry in frustration, because my everyday life has nothing to do with it.

I am a human dinosaur, soon to be extinct because I still say what I think but I am getting fearful now. Will society shut me up?

“JUST RIDE YOUR BIKE MORE YOU MORON!” a neighbor suggested when we talked about climate change online on a neighborhood board. I wonder what kind of angelic person might be hiding behind these words, who apparently does everything 100% right that he takes the liberty of attacking strangers online for the alleged frequency of their bicycle use. And do all these angels work for companies that act 100% ecologically? They do now and I know it.

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Can’t we please let each other do more again?

I am so much more! All of us are so much more! Happy woman, frustrated woman, happy wife, angry wife, happy blogger, unhappy blogger, ENVIRONMENTALIST, and POLLUTER.

I mostly eat healthy, but sometimes not; sometimes I enjoy meat, mostly not. My husband and I want to travel – by plane, train, and automobile – when we retire and I want an e-bike. Good grief I am both, an environmentalist and a polluter.

Can’t I just be gray?

What does the future hold? Do I have to stop being a real person with rough edges and a ton of residual waste?  For me, this trial and error, stumbling, making mistakes, and looking for alternatives is exactly what defines being a human being.

I reuse hard plastic bottles and fill them up with filtered water from the faucet because I want to keep plastic water bottles out of the landfills, but if you look under our sink, there is an army of cleaning supplies in plastic bottles just waiting to come out, and they will be replaced with the same product – and the same plastic bottles – when they are empty. Same scenario in the bathroom. Shampoos, gels and so much more, are all nicely stored in plastic bottles. Why don’t I buy ‘stuff’ in glass bottles? Because I am not perfect – or it never crossed my mind. Take your pick! (Sorry, landfill)

Don’t we all want to do it better?

I don’t want a green image anymore, simply because I don’t have the strength for it in the long term. I no longer want to protect the environment in public because I want to protect myself. Isn’t that sad?

I ride my bike but not enough. I use fewer plastic bottles, but still too many. I buy cheap ‘stuff’ even though I know it comes from a sweat-shop somewhere in a country far away. They have to make a living too -that’s my excuse and I stick with it.

I am trying to do it right, but acknowledge the fact that there is just too much wrong. I am lazy too. It’s hard work to be perfect. Wash out the containers, go to the butcher and be laughed at when handing them over for your deli meat, reuse the containers, pickle and can everything organic, be a wife, clean the house, and work a little beside it all.

Screw it! Being perfect is exhausting and being honest is dangerous!

I am a half-ass imperfect environmentalist who talks the talk but doesn’t always walk the walk.

There you go!

I am gray!