Past me,
You won’t believe the year you’ve had…
Right now you’re feeling all kinds of emotions. You’re anxious but excited, about everything, but mostly about starting over in an unfamiliar country, so far from home, and about the habits you’ve spent your whole life building that are suddenly being put to the test.
But I’m writing you this to tell you that it’s all going to be okay. In fact, it’s going to work out better than you could ever imagine.
You’ll make it your mission to build new habits and to make this year so meaningful that, when it ends, you’ll wish you could do it all over again. You’ll come out of it re-discovered, with more thoughtful, sustainable habits than you ever expected, ones you didn’t even know were possible.
I know it feels like you won’t be able to live sustainably in the traditional ways that you’re used to, but soon you’ll discover that sustainability looks different in Charleston, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s just new.
Here are a few things that you’ll do that will help ease your mind!
You’ll live in a house with six girls, not just for fun, but because you’ll understand the impact of shared water, gas, and electricity. You’ll cook together, study together, and even play rock-paper-scissors over who takes the recycling out. It won’t just make you more sustainable but it’ll bring you guys closer than ever. And on the nights you’re too tired to cook, you’ll use the Too Good To Go app to pick up leftover meals from local restaurants and try new foods that would’ve otherwise gone to waste.
You’ll donate clothes, makeup and unopened food to the local women’s shelter and campus food insecurity initiative, something that you didn’t even realise contributed to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal for Responsible Consumption and Production.
You’ll thrift winter clothes like it’s a treasure hunt, because it is, and it’ll become your Saturday ritual to find pop-ups across town. You’ll explore local markets and buy produce you’ve never tried and you’ll walk to Target every Tuesday with your reusable bags, even after one splits and your groceries spill across the street from your apartment, making you and your roommates laugh all the way home.
But most importantly, you’ll push through the homesickness and stay in Charleston for fall break instead of flying home, which will inspire your roommates to do the same, saving six long-haul flights and a whole lot of emissions.
So even though you’re scared now, you’ll soon realise that this was the most meaningful and sustainable year of your life.
Love,
Future you.
