dispatch from collapse: scarcity
Something happened this month. Not really happened, but changed. Something changed. Where in February and March, despite full collapse mode, I noticed in myself abundance, possibility, creativity. There was enough time, enough space, enough recovery, enough community for me to imagine things like houses and land and writing and road trips and ideas for my community and autonomy over my schedule. I was bubbling with options and ideas.
The thing that changed is I set the date for returning to work. I wrote about it in my last dispatch about “feeling ready” on March 19th. And I haven’t written here since. Sure, I’ve still journaled and had lightbulb moments where I scramble to get thoughts into my phone faster than the thoughts leave me. But just as soon as I started carving out this space for me to take up writing about my experiences here, I stopped. The sense of retreat, of holding tightly to my time, of feeling like there is, once again, not enough of it to go around dropped like a fog around me.
There were other things in April. The local police killed another Black person. The trial of Derek Chauvin had all of us holding our breaths for weeks. I’ve had 3–5 medical appointments per week in April including neurology, weekly PT, weekly OT, pulmonary function, two eye appointments, and a sleep study. The (still!) lack of income and the end of the stimulus money. All of those things could contribute to my sense of scarcity but all of those things had also been true before, when I was still working. It is, specifically, my planned return to work that has changed my mindset. If abundance is a mindset, maybe scarcity is too?
When in early March I felt so much permission in leisure and slow paces and smoking a lot of weed, suddenly in April I feel like I wasted all my time. All the things I hoped to do didn’t get done. Most of the books I had hoped to read are still unread (though I’ve also read more in the last 6 months than the previous handful of years combined!). The house is still untidy, the writing discipline I hoped to develop slid away, and I didn’t take nearly as many nudes of myself as I anticipated I would in February. When my mindset shifted to scarcity and conservation of energy, so too did the way I used the time I had. (There’s a lot more to say about this last part but not now cuz I’m tired.)
I’ve been talking in therapy about the necessity of living in reality where we still have capitalism, bills still have to be paid, and you need money to feed yourself. I have to go back to work because we all have to. But my body and mind and soul do not want to and will no longer engage in pretend play about that. It’s not that I don’t want to do *labor*; I want to engage my community and put my hands in dirt and shape our world. I am not lazy (and I’m not convinced laziness exists among the working classes). I am just no longer pretending to see the capitalist grind as some kind of badge of honor and I’m no longer willing to build my identity on my career.
Somehow three full months have gone by with relatively few demands on my time and it still feels like not enough. And then I start to wonder, what *would* feel like enough? Is scarcity a permanent companion? I’m not sure and I don’t feel like I have enough time or energy to figure that out tonight.
So. I return to work next Monday, May 3rd. And that’s all I know for now.//
i can be found ranting on Twitter @colocha_rachel. you can see my dogs and my houseplants on Instagram @colocha_rachel.
