How My Love Story Made Me Earth Conscious

Many would classify me as someone who "lives with their head in the clouds". Maybe they are right. Although, I can't say I mind the stereotype. One that many get labeled for the mere fact they have actual hope for life. I can find hope in just about any situation, and once I finally got introduced to what a carbon footprint is there was no going back. My hope had already grown attached to the idea of bettering the Earth and deepening my connection to it. Seeing everything as a “we” instead of an “I” changed my perspective forever.

Growing up in a small town of hicks and rednecks...(yes there is a difference)... I wasn't introduced to caring for the Earth until years later in life. Which is kind of funny considering my dad taught me how to garden, compost, hunt for food, and preserve water in case of an apocalypse. You know... that sort of thing. Through all those years of living almost waste free it never occurred to me, or my family, that we were caring for the earth. So you can imagine how out of balance our behaviors were when off the farm.

It's unfair to say that my parents didn't care about bettering the earth. They just weren’t taught the importance. So I inevitably got left out of the learning as well. Going through High School it was perfectly normal to see your classmate litter on the way out of the parking lot. The only reason I ever judged it was because I was taught to clean up after yourself. The idea of trash thrown on the ground in the middle of the Midwest finding it's way to the ocean wasn't a fact that was part of anyone's realities at the time. I hope now that my old classmates are taking better care, but I can only do what I can do for now.

Let's fast-forward a bit and get to the part where falling in love helped change my carbon footprint.

From High School to the present moment I went through many learning curves when it came to reducing my carbon footprint. From the successes like, changing from plastic bottles to reusable glass bottles. Or the failures like, realizing you have been recycling things that could potentially ruin the machinery at the recycle plants. Starting to notice and make changes can be overwhelming. And concepts that seem to be obvious sometimes are not as obvious as you think. That's okay; you can take some of my hope, I have plenty to get you through the first learning stages.

I was under the misconception that I had changed the way I was living plenty and I had almost arrived to a total cleanse of a carbon footprint. I will pause for a moment while we all laugh at my naivety. Let us be real, I had hardly touched the tip of the iceberg.

It wasn't until I met my now partner that I started learning the brutal truth about how big my carbon footprint still was. Remember earlier when I said people see me as a "living inside the clouds" type of person? Well you shouldn't expect anything less from my love story. I met my partner via the internet just weeks before I was transitioning to tent living. You would think the hard part was me living outdoors while trying to make a long distance relationship work without Wi-fi. It wasn’t any of those things! The biggest challenge we overcame was me finding my way to them in FRANCE in the middle of a global shutdown. Trust me when I say our love is as epic as our story.

One might think living in a tent would automatically make someone more Earth conscious, but my time in a tent was amazingly hard. Now that I have more education on living a waste-free life I would consider doing it again. Which brings us to my partner and I figuring out a way for me to get over to France and get married. It wasn't until being in France that I discovered how wasteful I actually was in my daily life. This isn’t to judge my lack of knowledge or shame me for how I used to live. My belief in personal growth is strong; now it includes being Earth conscious.

Before my awakening though it shocked my partner to find me making whole pots of coffee and just dumping the un-touched portion down the sink at night. The biggest shock to me was people in France frequently opted out of using a dryer. While some still do, it is less than what I’m used to back home. They hang all their clothes up to dry, and I love it. Nothing better then breeze-dried bloomers, am I right? It never dawned on me that I was wasting so much water and energy just by doing these two simple day to day things.

Another difference is PLASTIC BAGS. There hasn’t been a single one in sight since my arrival here. You bring your own reusable bags to stores and sack your own groceries. This was a huge change from the cashiers in the Midwest not only bagging your groceries in plastic bags, but sometimes double bagging them! Don’t lie... most families in the US have that ridiculous stash of plastic bags under their kitchen sinks. While I love to see them being re-used... I have hope in the future being plastic free.

We also don't own a car, I would love to say that is by choice but as it is, being forced to walk or bike everywhere isn't such a bad consequence. France is seemingly set up to easily get to wherever you want without a car. A lot of people don't own cars here, or at least that is how my mind perceives it when it compares this to my small town where everyone needed a car if they didn’t want to take a week just to get to school by foot. If we ever do end up purchasing a car we will be conscious about the effects it would make on the Earth.

The French aren't perfect, it would be a lie to claim so, as there is too much litter among other issues I'm sure I am not yet aware of. What I will claim is that out of any place I have ever visited... (Which is not many places out of the US)... France seems to be a united front of consciousness about their Carbon Footprint. And their spirit for not wasting even a drop of water has rubbed off on me.

The Partner and I are nowhere near the consciousness we want to be. But we dream about creating a home where we are free of waste completely and living in accordance to how much we love the planet and all it provides for us.

To summarize here are the areas we are currently changing or have changed:

1. Switched from plastic water bottles to glass bottles.

2. Saving coffee grounds and banana peels for fertilizer to use on our garden. By soaking the peels in water you make a fertilizer solution. (Disclaimer: look it up before to make sure this is right for you and your plants.)

3. Measuring out the water you need to avoid waste.

4. Growing your own vegetables and herbs.

5. Keeping electronics off when not in use.

6. Cleaning out the recycling BEFORE placing it into the recycle bin. Contamination can make a whole batch of recycled goods no longer usable. I highly suggest looking up the Do’s and Donts of recycling!

7. Taking re-usable bags to the grocery store.

I hope these small changes I have made encourage you to make your own small changes.

I will leave you with my current goals moving forward that will help lessen my carbon footprint.

1. Have a bigger garden to grow every type of veggie, fruit, and herb.

2. Sew my own clothes or buy second hand to avoid fast fashion.

3. Switching to all glass containers. No more plastic tupperware.

4. Not needing a trash can because there is nothing to toss.

5. Make my own cleaning products and scented candles to avoid the harsh chemicals that can effect our environment.

Happy Carbon-Reducing!