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On climate anxiety.

 Perhaps anxiety isn't the right word.

Well, not for me anyway. 

Anxiety for me is when the petrol pump keeps clicking off or I have *shudders* a phone interview or *gulps back spew* I have to stand up for myself.

So I send the scary email and then chuck my phone away for the next 12 hours while my palms sweat.

But that's not really what I feel with regards to the climate.

Though I definitely see how people do.

I feel more a sense of Rage (the lite version) or Stress (the stressy version) or Despair (because why does boiling the potatoes matter when we're all going to be dead because of ourselves anyway?).

I think all these feelings towards climate change and the human destruction of the environment are valid.

Because it means that we care.

And whether you feel angry or anxious or stressed or exhausted by it all, by feeling like no one with the power to actually change anything cares - these feelings are a hell of a lot better than apathy.

And these stressy climate thoughts send me into spirals of a) nothing, literally nothing matters b) humans do awful things c) what will the future of my daughters look like and d) how bloody privileged I am to even be able to be stressed about the climate anyway because I don't live in poverty or experience racism or am fleeing war or anything else Big and Awful like that.

So it's all a mess, as many things that I write on this blog are, and because it's all such a mess I get stuck by the thoughts and I don't actually do anything.

Like right now my eldest is at kindy, which means it's my very limited edition opportunity to get work done, albeit with a very small, teething sidekick, but I'm not doing the work! Instead, I'm boiling potatoes and stress writing this blog (it's like stress eating, but less productive and more ranty). 

Gah. Does everyone feel this thick, oozy mud around their ankles? And then not do anything but spiral further?

Or I do do (lol) things, but I know they aren't enough! And I want to do more. Because recycling our soft plastics is good and all but it's not going to make a dent. Arghhh.

And I mean, people still bully and think crash dieting is a good idea and litter, and so if we can't even get these basic things straight then how are we meant to SAVE THE WORLD TOGETHER. 

I mean, the opposition party here in NZ recently voted against the banning of conversion therapy. If something as obviously intelligent and long overdue as that has trouble actually happening, then what hope do the whales have? And the mushrooms and the forests and the air and the waterways? And don't even get me started on the fire in the ocean. 

A dear friend recently sent me in the direction of Leena Norms' climate panic series, so maybe that will help? Or even just solidify that other people also feel this doomsday stuckness? I do want to watch/read/listen to more about this, so if you're one of the five people (hello there, it's v v kind of you to give your time and energy to my mundane, internal debates) who read my rants regularly and knows of anything of the sort, let me know! 

Yours truly in fire, fear, fury, and a much less green earth,
Love Kaitlyn.

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