What does Dry January have to do with Climate Change?

Why I love January so much

I’m a summer baby. My birthday is in June and I typically spend the whole month giddy with the return of sunshine after a season of cocooning. Needless to say, I love June. But if I had to pick another month I love, it would be January.

2 main reasons. 

1) I LOVE new years reflecting and goal setting. I know it’s not everyone’s vibe, but it really works for me. I mean last year I decided to paint a watercolor a day for 100 days and I started Jan 1. I’d say that went pretty well for me 😅

2) It’s “Dry January.” This was definitely not a thing when I was younger, but now I love it. I don’t drink and I haven’t in 3+ years, so Dry January is the month where it has become normal to not drink. I rarely am bothered by people drinking and I’ve always had a healthy relationship with alcohol (I just take a medicine now that I can’t drink on). But I have to say I love the trend of not drinking being ~cool~. I am here for all these non-alcoholic mocktails. Give ‘em all to me! Yes some of them are just straight up juice but I’ve found some alcohol removed wine that really does resemble wine, which for someone who hasn’t tasted wine in years and used to enjoy it, is pretty great! 

You may be thinking- Nicole, I thought you were gonna write about climate change? I’ll get there I promise!

I was thinking about how Dry January has become a worldwide trend. It has been a cool thing to try for a whole month and has even led to some people quitting drinking altogether. It’s a pretty incredible phenomenon of collective action. Social accountability, positive perception, and attainable goal setting all lead to something that seems to be doable for people who want to challenge themselves. They feel the individual benefits themselves like better sleep, saving money, improved mental health, and no hangovers. 

What if we had something equivalent for climate? A month of X that would spark curiosity for the world to start taking more individual and collective action. For me, that is actually how I started my own climate journey. In 2016, I decided to do a zero waste challenge for 1 month. I did a bunch of research to prepare and it was a real eye-opener to the state of our world. The month was incredibly challenging, but felt rewarding along the way. I also blogged about it and shared on social media, which felt validating as well (picture below, me figuring out how to get a Johnny Rocket peanut butter chocolate milkshake and fries zero waste). From that month on, I found a passion for living a lower waste life and knew I wanted to find a way to make some sort of impact in the climate world.

If you want to see a *very* old video of me getting interviewed about living Zero Waste by my amazing friend Kristyn while we were traveling in Malaysia please enjoy that here. 😅 Also tell me if I should cut my hair short again bc I’m thinking about it haha. 

I think the closest thing that connects individual climate action to a collective challenge would be Veganuary. This is when you challenge yourself to be vegan for the month of January. This is a great example! But I wonder what else could be possible. 

Just wanted to throw this thought out there for now and see if anyone else has some ideas. 

On to my final section of reflection

Things I’m grateful forward for:

• Swimming. I started working with a personal trainer through the app Future because my friend Cathy referred me for a month trial and I’m loving it. My trainer used to coach a professional college swim team and she’s giving me proper swimming routines. So cool to feel my progression in strength

• My health, I feel like there’s a bunch of stuff floating around and I’m always grateful for my health 

Things I’m looking forward to:

• Going to Bathhouse in Williamsburg. I’m obsessed with any onsen-type bathhouses and finally booked a time to go this week.

• I can’t say details yet but I’m going to Asheville for a work related trip in April! I’m really excited, it’s a place I’ve been wanting to go for a long time and have heard great thing 

• I booked a retreat in June with Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell! I went on a retreat with Elizabth Gilbert earlier this year and quit my job to do art 3 days later haha. I’m unironically obsessed with her and her mindset around creativity. It’s the weekend after I turn 30 so I can’t imagine a better way to start my 30s. 

• Eating pancakes at my favorite spot in the city tomorrow with my friend Diana 

Things I’m stressed about:

• Getting MAJOR hate on Twitter for a piece I posted about called “Gas is Gross.” I got over 1,500 hate comments which was a first and is not fun. I’m a sensitive gal over here and trying to figure out how to balance that emotional intake of opinions I don’t want. I was called things I’ve never been called in those comments and I know they’re from people who I don’t value their opinion, but it still sucks. For now, I turned off comments from people I don’t know and set my Twitter to private to let it cool down a bit

  

• I canceled my trip to SF + LA because of the terrible weather. I am beyond bummed. I have been looking forward to this trip for the months since I booked it but truly for the years since covid started. I lived in LA for the year before Covid and miss my friends, the beach and the food. I’m hoping to reschedule for March or May, but I had put a lot of effort into planning out my time there. I also went through some major health issues and have worked very hard to be able handling a flight/trip like this again so the build up to the trip and then it being ripped away was really hard.

  

  Is it such a hard request to want to do this rn haha?

Alright friends!

That’s all for now. If you want to send over any nice of affirmation or silly GIFs today I would love that. The past 24 hours of hate comments has been a lot to handle so I could use some love. And of course if you want to consider becoming a paid subscriber and a true ~patron~ of the arts that would be amazing!

Feel free to forward to a friend as well especially since I’m private on Twitter for the next few days.

Best,

Nicole