Adventures
On finding light in the sudden dark.
Happy Wednesday! I hope your week is off to a great start. Today, I’m sharing a little story from this past week. I hope you’ll take it as a reminder that even when things don’t go quite according to plan, there’s usually a way to find some humor and light in the situation.
The other evening, I was over at my fiancé’s house. He was deep into a video game (the new Lego Batman), and I was sitting nearby, focused on some writing. Suddenly, everything just clicked off. The room went dark, the television screen went black, and the hum of the house was replaced by an eerie, sudden silence. We weren’t the only ones, either; his parents were just down the road at a restaurant, and they told us later that the power cut out for them right after they had settled the bill.
At first, it’s that classic moment, y’know, when you get up and start wandering the house because you’re certain that the power will be clicking back on momentarily. But instead of letting the sudden outage ruin the vibe, we decided to make the best of it. Dylan, who has a pretty impressive “nerd table,” immediately went for the most logical tool for a blackout: his lightsaber chopsticks.
Before I knew it, he was lighting them up and twirling them around like daggers. Watching him maneuver in the dark, the glowing purple light casting shadows against the walls, was honestly hilarious. It’s funny how quickly a small, unexpected moment can turn into a memory you’re still thinking about the next day.
Shortly after his parents returned, I remembered I had some lanterns stashed in my Jeep, so I went out and grabbed them. They did the trick perfectly, lighting up the room we were in just as the sun was dipping below the horizon.
Of course, the power decided to flicker back to life just as we were settling into bed—a fitting end to an unplanned evening.
It reminded me that we spend so much of our time tethered to screens and schedules, that sometimes, a total blackout is exactly the reset you didn’t know you needed. It’s a good reminder to keep your lanterns handy, both literally and figuratively.
Have you ever had a random power outage turn into an unexpected experience?
—Carissa
I actually LOVE a power outage because anytime it happens in my household, we light the trillion candles we have and gather around to either play board games or tell spooky stories (depending on how long the shortage is, of course). As you said, we're easily consumed by our schedules and screens, so I like that my family comes together when the power is off.