It Happens

Yesterday, the power went out for about 4 hours. If I was at home, I wouldn't have an issue with this. We'd light a bunch of candles, and I would probably sit down and read or talk to my parents. But because I was at school, it posed a bit of a problem and inconvenience. I had two papers due today- one was a midterm paper for my Physics class, and the other was a research paper for my Health class. I had finished both of them, but hadn't proofread or printed yet when the power went out. No power meant no printer. Which also meant no hot water, no oven, microwave, or stove. So, my roommate and I made elementary school sack lunches (pb&j sandwiches, apple juice, crackers, and a cookie for dessert), and trekked to the library where there was power. It was absolutely packed; people had all come there to avoid the darkness like it was the plague. I managed to get my work done, and finally around 8:00pm the power came back on. We came home, and I figured I would just use my printer rather than printing at the library, where chances are it would take forever to find a computer. Naturally, my printer wouldn't work. I had to fiddle with it and my computer for about 25 minutes before it finally got working again. Lesson from all of this? Shit happens.


Even just losing power for 4 hours in the middle of the day seemed like the end of the world for a lot of people. And I'll admit, I was pretty annoyed as well. It threw off my whole afternoon schedule, and I had to adjust my plans. But I realized something- that's part of the beauty of life. We can continue to have expectations, we can expect that everything we've planned will work out, but it won't. It rarely does. Why? Because we make plans, and God laughs. Sometimes we can't control what happens in life any more than we can control power outages. You have to learn to roll with the punches, to take every curve ball thrown at you, and adjust. And when it comes down to it, we're damn lucky to have everything in our lives. A lot of people are without power for longer periods of time and still survive. It's about making the most of the situation, and not taking for granted what you have. And when it rains, it probably will pour. I've been learning that during these times, we need to be the most thankful. During these times, we become the most humble, and realize how blessed we are. We need to remember how lucky we are to have this life, this one and only life. And without these power outages, without the darkness, we wouldn't be able to see the stars. So the next time the power goes out, I'll be thankful. Because the irrefutable, indisputable, absoluteable, totally beautiful fact is...it happens:)