When the Sky Stopped Feeling Normal

I’ll be honest: I never used to think about the climate. I grew up in a small town where the seasons were predictable—summer was hot, monsoon came with heavy rain, and winter brought a little chill. That rhythm felt so normal that I didn’t question it. The earth would always be the same, or so I thought.

But in the last ten years, I’ve watched that rhythm break apart in front of me.

I remember the first time I noticed it deeply. It was a summer evening, and the heat felt…wrong. Not just hot, but suffocating, like standing too close to a burning stove that never turned off. Even at midnight, the air was heavy and restless. I couldn’t sleep. I sat on the roof, looking at the night sky, wondering when heat had become this unbearable.

Then came the floods. Streets I walked every day turned into rivers. I saw families carrying their children on their shoulders, wading through water that reached their waist. I remember the silence in their faces—not panic, not anger, just exhaustion. As if they had run out of emotions to give.

And still, I told myself maybe it was just a bad year. Maybe things would swing back to normal.

They didn’t.

Each year since then has carried a reminder. Unseasonal rains drowning crops. Storms that destroyed entire neighborhoods overnight. Winters that never arrived. Summers that burned so hot, old people fainted on the streets.

It’s easy to ignore climate change when you read about it in a newspaper headline. It feels distant, like something happening to someone else. But when you see it with your own eyes—when the air you breathe feels heavier, when the food you eat becomes more expensive because crops failed, when your childhood “normal” no longer exists—that’s when the denial falls apart.

I’ll admit something: for a long time, I felt powerless. What difference does it make if I stop using plastic bags, when factories are pumping out smoke by the ton? What’s the point of switching off my light, when whole cities glow all night? I told myself nothing I did mattered, so why bother?

But that kind of thinking is dangerous. It gives you an excuse to do nothing, to shrug and wait for someone else to fix it.

The truth is, no one is coming to fix it. Governments make promises. Companies post slogans. But when the water rises, it’s ordinary people who stand knee-deep, trying to save their homes. When crops fail, it’s small farmers who go hungry, not the CEOs making speeches.

So I started small. Not because I believed I could save the world, but because I didn’t want to give up on it. I cut down on waste. I spoke to friends about what we could do in our neighborhood—planting more trees, reducing plastic, even just raising awareness. Little things. And maybe those little things are not enough, but they remind me that I am not helpless.

Here’s what I’ve learned: climate change is not just about the planet. It’s about us. It’s about whether our children will know what winter feels like. Whether farmers will survive. Whether cities will breathe. The earth will go on, in some form or another. The real question is—will we?

I think about those families I saw walking through floodwater, their children clinging to them. I think about the day when heat kept me awake at midnight, sweating under a still sky. I don’t want to just remember those moments; I want to make sure they don’t become the only future we have.

Maybe you feel the same helplessness I once felt. If you do, here’s my confession: it gets easier when you stop looking at the problem as one giant monster and start asking, “What can I do today?” Because when enough people take small steps, they don’t stay small for long.

The climate crisis is real, and it’s terrifying. But giving up would be worse.

So here’s my promise to myself—and maybe yours too: I will keep trying. Even when it feels insignificant. Even when it feels like no one notices. Because the earth is our only home, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life watching it fall apart while I stayed silent.