climate change and dishonesty

August 16th, 2022

I delayed this entry because I was afraid of writing it. I’ve been hesitant pouring this out as this is a feeling I thought had been left in my teens. Dissatisfaction towards the horrible aspects of the world. The complex problems with seemingly easy solutions, though no one seems to be doing much about anything. And when I mean no one, I mean the ones who can actually make a change. The super rich, billionaires, governments and companies.

I was over it for some years. I accepted that I have to fight in order to conquer and achieve my goals. But this dissatisfaction has turned into fear. Now I’m afraid in general, with a turning stomach; concerned about the future. My own, but also everyone else’s. It has gotten tougher to filter the negativity throughout the day.

Like a constant paranoia that haunts me when I’m walking on these busy, urban sidewalks or when I take the train. That something wrong might happen, or that a loved one has been in accident and I don’t know about it.

I worry. My love life, my career, my parents, sister, friends. The country I live in, the city where I’m from, that neighborhood in Italy I love so much, the street where I had my first kiss, the building that caught fire when I was 12, the apartment where I was raised. What will be of all of it?

I usually wake up unsatisfied. The alarm clock is my biggest enemy. I’m tired of attending the office for 8 hours, 5 days a week. It’s simply too much, there’s no other way to put it. The system infuriates me. The hierarchy is counter-productive, and communication is the main challenge. Dealing with people, that’s when it gets complicated. Emotions are uncontrollable.

To top it all off, my love life stumbled. I was reminded today that my partner kissed someone else (which he told me about two months ago). Though the information had been recorded wrong, and I discovered that this had in fact happened a year later than I remembered.

This new piece completely changes the narrative of our relationship and it got me remembering many situations where knowing this could have played a big part in my decisions - but only one of us knew about it.

I feel betrayed and confused, when he was the one accusing me of not trusting him. And maybe I was a bit skeptical in the beginning of our relationship, sure; but I didn’t know I would come to find a reason for my suspicion.

I had previously forgiven him for what was a drunk kiss at New Year's Eve, but being reminded of that mistrust has me questioning if all the next New Year celebrations will be haunted by this horrible memory and mistake.

It’s not the cheating that gets to me. I understand I mean a lot more than a drunken touch of lips. But it’s the circumstances that bother me. I was away visiting my family for the holidays, he was extremely drunk, he hid it from me for over a year and brought it up for the first time after trying to break up with me - telling me he wanted to be able to do these kinds of things. But when I offered an open relationship, he denied.

I seek refuge in a colleague at work and she reminds me to have fun, but I haven’t been getting much of that lately. I try to seek comfort in astrology or our talks at work. I watch my favorite youtubers when I can, but it’s mostly just work and back home, under the scolding Sun in the era of climate change. Droughts, storms, heatwaves, landslides, corruption, war, famine, economy, my boyfriend.

Anyway, this was a relevant enough event for me to be bothered and write about. So in the future, I’ll look back at this with a different eye and maybe feel better.

- Ms. Rodwell