December 7, 2023

by Dr. Plastic Picker

Thank you for following along my emotional journey of this climate work. I’m just here sitting at the kitchen table and it’s 6:15am. I’m drinking my matcha green tea with a splash of soy milk, and 1-2 teaspoons of sugar. And I’m feeling hurt and disappointed. I’m including recent pretty pictures of our daughter to make myself feel better. I can’t and don’t need to go into details, but I’m feeling hurt. Opening oneself up to the world and trying to fundamentally address the climate crisis and improve environmental health for our collective children has meant opening myself up to all sorts of experiences and people and situations that I’ve never been in before. I have climate friendships now that I never thought possible. I’ll be seeing Dr. Elizabeth Friedman soon, and she is one of my most favorite people in the world. She is a Pediatric Environmental Health Specialist from Kansas City, Missouri. But it has also meant taking risks and today feeling hurt and disappointed.

I’ve learned that I need to let the hurt and disappointment sit. I guess she wasn’t enough for a picture, and someone else was enough to work on an entire project together. I am hurt because I feel like my child was excluded when I purposefully include as many other children/youth as I possibly can in projects that I think up. That’s it. I feel like my child was deemed not good enough for something that she is uniquely qualified for. But I know after talking to her that for the specific project she actually has no interest in it. It’s completely irrational my feelings of hurt, but they are there and today I’m going to enjoy wallowing in them. My love and affection were real, so very real. And therefore my hurt and feelings are real.

But you know what I learned yesterday when my daughter was comforting me in my make-believe drama? I know she loves me and she was comforting me, and I know no matter what that in the end she realizes how much I love her. We got to talk about so many things. About family values and future aspirations. About boys and that’s its best to wait for the first of everything until it’s the right person. And I’m honestly glad that she’s going to wait on everything for many more years. My daughter realizes her Dr. Plastic Picker mother can be irrational and silly, and this climate work has changed me. She hugged me yesterday and looked at me and said “Mommy, I’m only 15.”

Yes, you are. You are a gorgeous 15 and honestly there was never a boy that was going to be good enough. I’ll let you find your own but I’m going to allow myself to wallow and feel hurt today.