Once upon a time, I lived in a cabin with no electricity for a year. I learned a lot and I wrote about some of it in this blog post: 7 Things I Learned Living Without Electricity For A Year
This week, I got to experience living without electricity again, only this time, it was a completely different experience. In the storm of a century for the state of Texas, houses, offices, restaurants, etc. all across the state lost power for extended periods of time. Some of them still haven’t regained power after almost 5 days of no power and record low temperatures. I was perhaps one of the lucky ones, with my apartment only losing power for just over 50 hours before regaining power. At the lowest point, the apartment got to about 37 degrees, but we never lost water, which is a luxury not many can claim in the city now.
While I was living in the mountains of North Carolina, living without power almost seemed natural. Life was set up to live without power. We had a wood-burning stove to keep warm in the winter, we communicated what we needed to when we were with each other so that we didn’t have to depend on a phone call later to do it, and we knew to keep flashlights handy at all times. After a couple of weeks, you stopped naturally feeling for the light switches when you walked into every room.
In the city of Austin, however, it feels completely unnatural to go without power. Everything depends on it. In my apartment, there isn’t a fireplace at all, my work depends on having both wifi and power for my laptop, I can’t make any hot food without power. Even though I had so many more luxuries around me, in the blink of an eye, with one thing gone, I felt like a sitting duck.
I won’t lie and say that I didn’t enjoy the adventure a bit, though at the cost of many millions in much more difficult situations than I going through extreme stress and dire need. I enjoyed the challenge. I enjoyed bundling up in blankets in my 40 degree apartment to try and sleep through the night. It was an experience I won’t soon forget, and I can’t wait to see what the next adventure will bring.