Back two years ago, I posted a picture of my car’s fuel gauge, with the title ”Not running on empty” .

I was making the point, then remarkable, that I last bought petrol around 80 days previously. I had only really driven the car on a round trip in and out of the city to try to recharge the flat battery.

Same, same, same this year… except the reason for the lack of driving is because I am IN the city. Most essential places – medical, social, exercise, shopping are more easily walked to than driven to.

My analogy about myself from two years ago just doesn’t fly now.

For the first year or so of the pandemic, I did get a chance to refuel, as I pointed out two BlogJunes ago. I was working half-time, not as a university lecturer. I was getting more sleep, more exercise and had far less on my to do list. I was coming to terms with the joys of not trying to maintain a social life. I had permission to just potter about at home, making my garden very wonderful, and not feel terribly isolated nor lonely as I had always feared would happen if I didn’t force myself to get out more.

Now in the third year of the pandemic, I am glad that I was able to refuel then. The opportunity was one of privilege. Now I still consider myself to be living an incredibly privileged life. My tank, however, feels pretty empty. I still have opportunity to sleep well, eat well, exercise well and socialise at an amount that suits me. I try to take advantage of that. But less successfully than at the start of the pandemic.

Like everyone around me, I seem to have far less resilience. It takes far smaller obstacles to throw my plans out. I have less energy or tolerance to pick myself up, dust off, and keep going. I feel like I am absorbing the collective misfortune, frustration and stress of those around me. Hearing of workplaces with 40% of staff off sick, or seeing yet another student ask for an extension due to three kids with COVID, seeing events cancelled, trips postponed, people uneasy about gatherings where we would have all happily mingled and hugged… Then feeling, maybe, guilty. I am not going through it – so shouldn’t I just feel relieved and grateful and make the best of where I am at, instead of just being incredibly tired out by it?

It feels like we are all part of an interconnected system of depleted energy. Like people (and by ”people” I mean me) are saying ”enough” far earlier when something is challenging or needs extra effort or even regular effort.

In previous years I have been excellent at getting out every little bit of effort I have – and then more – to get done what needs doing.

Maybe, just maybe, that was totally whack?

After years and years and years of running too fast and using every single bit in my tank, this is Stage Two of ”Just Slow Down and Things Will Be Better”.

2020, Stage One, gave me chance to pause and feel what it was like to take things slower and reap benefits. Some of it stayed with me. Never, ever, will I feel bad again because I said no to going to a party. It’s OK for parties to just not be my thing. I know how important it is to surround myself with the green and growing.

2021 was a chance to move interstate and change almost everything about my life. I put in heaps of effort to adapt and do what was needed to establish a new life and a new job…doing almost two lives’ worth of stuff as I just kept going and going and going, through nobody’s compulsion but my own. ”No” and ”help” and ”enough” should have featured more in my vocabulary.

2022 is the year I realise that the effort of 2021 (and pre-2020) is not sustainable. Not through sensible and clear insight. Just because my Superpower of Silly and Stupid Efficiency deserted me when my tank ran empty again. No dramatic breakdown or anything like that. I just left things undone that I thought I could do, because I managed to do similar last year, and in many years before. As everyone else around me also reached capacity. And many are falling over.

So, instead of relying on tanks of fuel, that fluctuate upward and downward, I need to find a walking track. Slide on some good walking shoes, or even meandering shoes, and take things far more slowly. Cover less distance, slower, but more sustainably. No parties, but more sunshine and birdsong. No running. Just a good, steady pace.

May 2023 be the year of the appropriate and superfluous sit down. Where I learn more about stillness and rest.

For now, one step at a time.