Guilt

I have a lot of half written posts that I haven't worked the kinks out of enough to post. 
In the mean time, here's a quickie based on a poem I wrote while eating a sugar free vegan ice cream on a stick. 

GUILT

Guilt is the package unwrapping and the lights turning on. 

The fourth meal of the day and grocery bags in the trash can. 

It is not filling up metal water bottles found in trash cans, putting on extra layers to avoid turning up the heat or a vegetarian meal with family. 

What we leave behind. 

As an American Environmentalist...I feel a lot of guilt. My counselor in college told me to let it go, that it wasn't healthy, so I transformed it into some other description of the same feeling. But I can't help but feel guilt as I drive my car to a meeting, or buy something new, made from fossil fuels, while I'm carrying around a book that begs for a change in our ways of living. 
But two lines into the poem I found a little hope. I thought of the things that I used to feel guilty about- around the time when my counselor shunned my behavior. Through continued education of the invaluable systems of our Earth, I have been motivated to stop eating meat, and animal products, to reduce my carbon footprint, bike whenever I can, and stop buying water bottles (8 years without purchasing a bottle of water!). 
At a book club tonight where we discussed the strangely contrasting This Changes Everything  and Beyond Ecophobia, I confessed my inner battles with living life among our society as sustainable as possible, and retreating to an ecovillage with a truly tiny impact. I guess like so many others, all I can do is take one day at a time, and continue living out each moment to the extend of my beliefs. 
Today I made a vow to stop using plastic wrap. All I can be is best me. 

Beauty is around us.