YEAH, NAH!
I’m living a life of that’s full of contradictions, admits Stephanie Arthur-worsop
I’VELONGCONSIDEREDMYSELF to be awalking contradiction. From situation to situation I can be confident or self-doubting, social or introverted, feminine or masculine.
Sometimes it depends on whoi’m around, but a lot of the time it depends on what kind ofmoodi’m in.
I once hauled solidwooden furniture up a flight of stairs— while blaring Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves— just to prove wrong the personwhosaid it would be too heavy for a 19-year-old girl.
Butwhenmy car brokedown a couple weeks ago, instead of calling a towand organising for amechanic to look at it, I calledmy husbandwho left work to sort it out forme.
I’ve worked hard to developmycareer and care deeply about what I do for a living but, if myhusband got a job thatmeant I didn’t have to work, I’d become a stayat-homemumin a heartbeat.
I will happily let daddy long-legsmake theirhomes inmy bathroom but the minute I see awhitetail crawl out from a dark crevice, I’ll waste half a can of Raid making sure it doesn’t takeastep further.
All these contradictions I can live with, or at least justify— daddy long-legs won’t hurtme but whitetailswill bite, I lovemy career but I lovemybabymore, I don’t likemen tellingme what I can and can’t do but if it’s easier formyhusband to deal withsomething, I’ll leave it with him.
But what I do find hard— and I’m praying others are in the same boat so I don’t feel so terrible — is reconcilingmyinner contradictions involving conservation.
Climate change is real, the way humans treat this planet is horrible and everyone should be trying to do better.
Myhusband and I, in our infinite idealism, are always looking at wayswe can improve our ownbehaviour.
That’swhywe plant bee-friendly shrubs in our garden, make ourown spray and wipe and use shampoo bars and stainlesssteel safety razors.
But here’s the thing— the changeswe havemade haven’t been all that inconvenient.
What would be inconvenient (but arguably more helpful to theenvironment) is if we stopped running two cars, eating meat, buying any groceries wrapped in plastic, using disposable nappies for our son and buying fast fashion.
Everynowand againwe talk about becoming vegetarians but it never eventuatesbecausewhocould give up lamb roasts and bacon and eggs?
Andwe did talk about putting our son in cloth nappies butwhenwe found out most disposable nappies these days are compostable, we figured no harm, no foul, right?
Weeven considered goingdown to one carwhenwewere upgrading our Swift.
But having recently goneaweek and a half without a car while it was at the mechanics, I can tell you the inconvenience of two shift workers and a child in daycare trying to share one car, far outstrips its benefits.
Nevertheless, because I live in a constant state of contradiction, there are dayswhere all I want to do is pack up, move off the grid and live off the land.
We could ditch the televisions, social media and our cellphones, reverting to a simpler, more unpluggedperiod of time.
It would be bliss. There would be no distractions, just nature and family. Heaven on Earth.
Then again, the newseason of His Dark Materials has justcome out and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is proving to beagreat game.