Small Differences

So today, for a variety of small reasons all mounting up, I've been feeling a bit down. The fates have an acute sense of timing, and I will find myself unemployed in a terrifyingly short space of time at a moment when I really can't run back to my parents place and hide under the covers, which has always been my Plan B up to this point. It's not just that I can't, but that I don't want to be dependent on them. I want to find a way to make the life I want in the place I want, which right now is here. However, the Gods of the Job Market have their own priorities right now, which include laughing in my face a lot.

As a by-product of this, budgeting is getting tighter and tighter, and I'm looking towards a summer in which I will struggle to eat a balanced diet, and it certainly won't be organic. The budget has also proved a stumbling block in some of my other project areas. For example, growing my own food: I need to invest in containers and potting compost, as I can't compost my kitchen scraps (grrrrlandlordgrrrrrr) and also in seeds and seedlings. I've got some growing, but they'll need potting up into larger containers at some point, and I might just have to risk the landlord's wrath and plant them on the edge of the lawn. I'd love to make my own clothes and soft-furnishings, but as I don't have any worn out clothes to play with, I'd have to buy fabrics, and I'd also have to buy a sewing machine. (More on my lustings after a Singer sewing machine later).

All this means that many of the things that make me smile and feel that I'm making a difference in the world, many of the projects which were making me skip with anticipation, will have to be put on hold for probably a good long while. Although I will almost certainly be asking Father Christmas for a Singer sewing machine for Christmas.

However, I was procrastinating by reading some of the old posts on No Impact Man's blog, and thinking gloomily that the tea in my mug was neither fair-trade nor organic, and could only be called local in comparison to Mars. And I came across this post. It's a beautiful parable, and I'm going to ask myself to think of one thing I've done each week which has made a small difference.

This week, I cycled to work instead of taking the tram. That's a small change, but a change.