We're all doing too much.

Everyone I know is so tired.

**I** am so tired.

You are so tired.

We're barreling into Fall, all business-as-usual,

eager to put this pandemic life behind us,

and stop pausing on our plans.

But we've forgotten a couple of things.

One, business is NOT usual.

Just because we've learned to live with

the low thrum of constant pandemic stress

doesn't mean we aren't still experiencing it daily.

Individually, and collectively.

Also

for many of us, the pandemic sparked huge life changes.
Life changes that, in and of themselves, would be exhausting.

But we made these changes while we watched COVID sweep the globe,

while a villain was in the White House,

while we fought wildfires and floods,

while we mourned George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

And this was AFTER enduring three years of a proto-fascist presidency.

That was a fucking LOT.

We have not recovered.

We are still processing these traumas.

This is going to take time.

Two, by the way, is this:

Business-as-usual is TEW MUCH.

Remember?

We were always doing too much, pre-pandemic.

For a moment, we paused -

kinda like on a snow day.

But now we're back to doing too much again,

just this time with masks on.

I know I'm impatient with my weariness.

I bet you are, too.

Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, right?

But we can't fake-it-make-it our way out.

We need to tend to this bone-tiredness, my friend.

We must must MUST learn how to prioritize our being over our doing.

We have to learn to make time and space for resting and healing.

I'm saying this to myself,

as much as to you:

business-as-usual is a dehumanizing trap.

Our humanness is quietly pleading with us to do better, and less.

xo,

Natalie

Seize the avocado.