It’s been 40 hours since we last had electricity.

Yet the world is still turning, children are still playing, people are still thinking. It’s been a lot longer than 40 hours since I last had a warm shower. Yet I’m still breathing, my legs are still moving, I’m not yet stinking.

It is a bit of a shock to the system though.

A substation burnt down and we lost all power to the majority of our suburb. But what can we do?

Not a whole lot, apart from keeping warm without the use of hot water, heaters or cups of tea. Search for a café in the city that has wifi to do some work before the laptop dies. Go to the local gym for a shower (which ended up not having hot water anyway). And then just continue on with life.

Nighttime means candles and sandwiches, water heated on the barbeque for tea, and reading good old books until our eyes cannot stand the flickering of the candlelight on the page. Torches, blankets and melting ice-cream needing to be eaten (oh, damn).

But what about the luxuries that we’ve been taking for granted for so long?

We can’t look out the windows as the blinds are electric, we can’t use the garage unless we want to manually open it each time, heat pumps are out of the question and we are kicking ourselves for not having a gas stove top.

It’s not all bad though. It’s a time for the family to come together without the distraction of the TV. The only updates are through the transistor radio and occasionally our phones decide to work so we can feel that instant connection to the world we are used to.

It does concern me that it has become such a big deal, this not having power business. I don’t mind the candles, the sandwiches and the melted ice cream but to be honest, as we approach being without power for 40 hours, I’m starting to feel a little restless. And unclean.

This is despite the fact I’ve been to third world countries and seen horrific poverty. I’ve walked down the main street of the city I live in and seen people begging on the pavement. Some houses in suburbs less than five minutes away never have heaters or insulation and children freeze all winter long. Then, of course, there are the natural disasters that devastate countries, diseases that unfairly take peoples’ lives and a whole lot more sh*t that goes on in this world.

What am I complaining about again?

It’s all about perspective, isn’t it? Hopefully, when things go slightly wrong, we can step back and realize just how lucky we actually are.

The sad thing is, the power will come on soon.

The hype will calm down and we’ll go back to taking this beautiful gift of electricity, and life, for granted once again.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

Sign up for our (curated) daily and weekly newsletters!

~

~

Apprentice Editor: Chrissy Tustison, Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: Flickr