What do we do?

Where do we go?

The last 10 days have been heavy, in a real and tangible sense and also in a theoretical, imaginative sense. At this very moment, I am safe and warm and inside my intact, sound home, staring out at a tree that’s turning yellow and shedding leaves in my back yard. My daughter is safe and well and just now getting dismissed from a school that she attends every weekday. My partner is safe. I am well. I am cared for, loved, and privileged in so many ways. So many friends and loved ones are not in the same situation—we know so many people who have been displaced by Helene, people who lost friends, people who lost everything, and now even more people who are being forced to flee their homes to avoid the disaster that’s coming with Milton. So, today I feel lucky that I am okay.

But I am not okay. As I watch the news and memes and Reels that detail the ferocity of this second massive hurricane about to come barreling into us in as many weeks, I begin to shake and tears roll down my cheeks. I am not okay. We are not okay. This earth, our HOME is NOT OKAY. Every time I walk outside today, I notice the elevated temperatures. I look up and see airplanes leaving their toxic trails across the expanse above me. I try to keep my mind from spiraling, but it’s inevitable that the thoughts creep in: Spiraling thoughts of the lives that have been and are being impacted by climate change in the recent days, weeks, years. (Where are all the abandoned pets going to go? How do people empty their homes of that much mud? When will Asheville have power and water again? What’s going to happen to our friends there? When will they come home? How many people had nowhere to go? How does clean up happen? Where do you even begin?) Spiraling thoughts of what will inevitably come for us here in central Virginia. (Where would I go? How would I make sure everyone was safe? What do I stand to lose?) Spiraling thoughts of the world we are leaving to our kids—the world I am leaving to my daughter. There are no climate safe havens, we are all vulnerable, and probably even more so than we can even begin to understand at this point.

What is there to do? It all feels hopeless. Collective action is certainly needed, but how can we as individuals feel as though we’re making a difference? I rode my silly e-bike to and from the gym this morning, trying to do my small, simple part in helping the earth with this one little action. At my house, we compost, we recycle, we don’t buy a ton of crap we don’t need, we walk anywhere we can. We teach our kid about loving and caring for the planet. But it all feels so futile. I sit here at my computer, doing my silly work, writing my silly words… when what I really want to do is run up the hill to my daughter’s school, grab her by the shoulders, hold her tight and cry into her hair. Tell her that I’m sorry. Tell her I don’t know how this is going to end, but I don’t think it’s going to be good.

Where do we go from here? What amount and proximity of catastrophe is necessary to start actually moving the needle, motivating collective and global action, seeing real initiative and change? As I wrote above, we need some buy-in on significant, collective action. We need legislative action. We need government interventions, sweeping overhauls, regulations and crack-downs on the companies that are driving our planet into a literal flaming dumpster fire. We need EVERYONE to do more. And do less. LESS fast fashion, less Amazon shopping, less crap, less stuff, less reliance on convenience and less creating waste that has NOWHERE TO GO. Less apathy, more action. The problem of our current climate crisis is so complex, yet so simple—we only have one planet and we don’t get a do-over with this one. We have to make changes. Before it’s too late. If it’s not already too late.

All of the climate crisis talk is enough to send anyone into a downward spiral of actual depression. I’m not even touching on the other current, ongoing global and domestic crises—the Middle East is on fire and in complete unrest, the single biggest killer of our country’s children and teens is guns, and this upcoming election has the potential to tip us all (the sane ones, anyway) into complete insanity.

What do we do? I came here to write, hoping I would write my way to solutions. The only thing I’ve come up with is more questions, more unease, more anxiety. I’ve started a daily meditation practice, which feels like it has helped me settle my racing thoughts and knee-jerk reactions a lot of the time. But I can’t meditate all the livelong day. I’m tempted to give up social media, but that is part of my actual paid job—social media management and consulting is a service I provide to clients, so I can’t totally eliminate it. I also don’t want to live in a bubble of ignorance, so completely eschewing the news isn’t a healthy option, either.

I’m stuck.

What are you all doing to manage the doomsday thinking? To feel like you’re contributing, doing something to better the world, or help, or lessen, or create change? Has any of it helped?

The walnut tree outside my back door, helping me track the change in seasons as I work.