Eviction, Expulsion, Ending: does Creating uphold or resist life precarity?

I’ve given myself 1 hour to write something for this Substack.

I feel anxious about taking this hour. It feels indulgent, irresponsible. Most everything in my life is objectively precarious—either crumbling or already crumbled: my income, my transportation, my housing, my closest relationships, my standing in my PhD program, my life path…

The past four months, I have experienced a series of big changes. I haven’t had time to fully feel or process—let alone write stories about—one, until the next one comes:

• My long-term partner and I separated. We were together for almost three years. We thought we were going to be co-witnessing the entirety of this lifetime, in continuity. I loved our life together. We also dreamed together. We made plans to realize some of our dreams. For example, this summer we were going to start building a house with our own hands, close to the mountains. Suddenly, I will never see him again. I miss him. We are incompatible as life-partners. I wish it was different.

• That night, my mentor was hit by a car while crossing the street in the rain. He died within the hour.

• The separation between my partner and I was a catalyst for the confrontation of a frontier of difference between me and one of my most intimate friends. The process of integrating that difference into our models of reality and each other, involves fracture and distance and inner resources. I miss him.

• Around three weeks later, I hydroplaned on the freeway. I spun wildly for fifteen seconds before finally hitting the center median. Dozens of other cars collided swerving to avoid the debris of my car. No one was injured. My car was totaled.

• With financial cuts to the university, I was told I needed to move through my program faster, or I would be expelled.

• And the home button on my phone is broken.

I spend most all of my time fighting to maintain basic life infrastructure. I push my overwhelm to the side and cautiously titrate the energy I allow to be moved within my heart space, because I know if a pebble gets dislodged, there will be a landslide, and I will collapse into it. And I can’t lose a day of productivity to feeling despair and helplessness. I need to be in a headspace to act. To save myself. To fight for my life-project. I can’t lose sight of the pockets of actual agency-space within the structural terrain I navigate. In sleep, my body helps me heal by releasing fear from my nervous system through dreams. Some nights I wake from constant nightmares.

Did I subconsciously want all this to happen? Did I burn it all down? I want to hold the ways I am complicit in my own suffering. How much ownership is too much or not enough?

My hour is up.