Only six days into the new year and I’ve already let down the polar bears.

I’m not big on resolutions, but this year I decided to stop using paper cups when I go to Starbucks for my tea. I have tea at home in a regular cup, but when I’m out and about I stop at Starbucks for a venti English Breakfast with an inch of cold soy.

I’m out a lot, so I tend to tea a lot. Looking at my recycle can in the garage, I was borderline disgusted. Before 2015 ended, I purchased a lovely white travel cup and vowed to carry it with me like my wallet. That way any time I wanted tea, I’d have my cup.

As I get older, I’m more about making little changes, nudging things instead of trying to revamp.

I was doing well, I could actually feel the polar bears smiling at me. They were happy for my contribution to help restore their ice. New year, new cup, complete consciousness of a world bigger than my own. I was so proud, if I could make this cup thing work, there was no stopping me.

And then I got sick.

I know it’s a weak, pathetic excuse, but it started with a sore throat and grew into body aches, dirty hair swirly and yuck. Right in the middle of having to work and do laundry and it’s raining and . . . oh, forget it. I’m a loser, that’s all there is to it. A environment destroyer, a superficial spoiled American, that’s what I am all right.

I left to pick up my youngest at school, forgot my cup, and fell right off the wagon. The polar bears shook their heads at me and even though I did feel bad, it turns out I’m a bit of a junkie too.

I swear my Starbucks tea tastes better in the paper cup. I recycle the paper cups I use, maybe I could just keep using the paper cups and find some other way to help with their ice. All of that flooded into my head the moment I took my first non-polar-bear-friendly sip.

Keep in mind I’ve already justified going to the huge monopoly that is Starbucks because we don’t have a local coffee place out in the boondocks where I live. So this paper cup debacle is on top of that “whatever you need to tell yourself, Tracy” justification.

Six days, not even a full week. I’m still sick and it’s still raining, but I’ve washed the cup and I will try for another six days starting today. I’ve only used three paper cups in the new year, that has to be an improvement, right?

My thoughts from the laundry room. Sick Bed.

 

choices good choices learning stupidity thoughts wonder environment fail life New Year polar bears thoughts