I don't know if its my OCD or having been raised Catholic, but I am the type of person who feels a LOT of guilt and accepts entirely too much responsibility for things that are not my responsibility.
Like, global warming, for example.
There is a part of me that thinks I should venture out in the car only like 2 days a week to conserve fuel and minimize greenhouse gases and buy cloth diapers to reduce landfill waste and unplug every appliance or furnishing that is not being used at that moment in the house to eliminate the tiny blips of energy that are wasted just from having the toaster oven plugged in even though it may not be in use.
But then I think, "Why should I, little ole me, sacrifice when Las Vegas and NYC are lit up 24/7/365?" My plugged in but not on bedside lamp ain't hurtin nothing in the big scheme of things.
And if my city had some lite rail or subway that was a real, legitimate usable option, I would use it, but I'm not gonna haul both kids to a bus stop and wait 45 minutes or however long for a stinky old bus to take us to the grocery. Hell, I don't even think buses run in my end of the suburbs to anywhere other than downtown.
And unless every other momma in my city is going to stop using disposable diapers then why should I feel compelled to use cloth when I don't want to.
I know I sound childish..."I'm not gonna put away my toys because Joey's momma doesn't make him put away his toys." But I can't help it. If I allowed myself, I would take the entire weight of the world onto my shoulders, and the environment thing is just a slippery slope on which I would spend all my time fretting while everyone else would go on with their lives.
So I do little things, small sacrifices, small changes. Using cloth bags at the grocery, and recycling everything I possibly can, and not buying bottled water, and making big runs in the car rather than 8 million small runs to places I don't really need to go. And I can do this without driving myself bonkers or feeling guilty.
At some point, there will come a time for big sacrifices but I won't be the only one having to make them.
1 comment:
Not as a guilt thing, but just as something from a mom who has been there - cloth diapering is not bad at all! (In fact I never hit the point where I'm out of diapers and have to run to the store!) The diapers are cute, babies have less rash (why we did it), it was less expensive and easy (why I'm still doing it). I know some people try to go with the G diapers, but those were seriously nasty... All these things about CDing really surprised me.
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