Simply Empowered

I started the year with a commitment to GO.

 

I dubbed 2011 the year to step out of my box and go out of my comfort zone into unfamiliar territory. I even asked God to nudge me, so to speak, into areas which stretched me beyond where I like to be.

I’m not sure I expected Him to answer me so readily and so literally, but He did.

Have I mentioned that I’m afraid of the dark?  Well, I am.  For no small reason have I earned the title baby of the family.  I blame my overactive imagination. In 49 years, I have never… not one single time… allowed myself to be caught alone in the darkness.

So you can imagine my comfort level when The Great Ice Storm Adventure left me without power just as the blue hour was stealing the last bit of daylight from the sky.

I waited for a little while, hoping that it would rally as it had the other fourteen times it had gone out that day.

It showed no gumption whatsoever.

There I was, sitting home alone, in the dark, with the woods still crackle- popping around me.  In response, I did what any normal 49 year old mother of two would do; I called my mom. There wasn’t a single thing the Duchess could do for me since she lives over an icy river and through a piney stick woods, but I called nonetheless. 

I also called the husband in Atlanta.

And both of my daughters at school.  

All four had the great privilege of talking Debbie off the ledge. All four gave me the same sage advice.

Light some candles.

Well, thanks.

I rounded up every candle in this house, large or small and gathered them to illuminate the living room. Now folks, there’s a name for a dark room illuminated with candles.

Spooky.  

Honestly, there is little comfort in sitting in a room
which looks like the set of a horror movie. 

But then…

Somewhere in the middle of it all, I decided that it really wasn’t worth all the dread and drama. In fact, when I stopped hyperventilating long enough to look around me, it was fine, almost cozy. And somewhere in the middle of it all, I decided to take my little candle and venture about the house to find things to occupy my mind in the darkness.

I gathered up some hoarded magazines and used the time for a sort and purge. Then, I took my candle back into the darkness to find my reading glasses because I got sidetracked by the cover stories which had kept me from tossing them away to begin with.

I stayed downstairs in that living room for hours before blowing out the candles and heading upstairs to the darkness called my bedroom. It was while I was carrying that little light of mine that I heard a quiet blowing sound.

Like music to the ears.

(By the way, it's hard to do the happy dance while holding a lighted taper.)

Now, if you’re thinking that the sound of that power returning is this week’s simple pleasure, you would be wrong. While I did enjoy the simple blessing of the amenity that I too often take for granted, it wasn’t the return of the power that gave me my greatest pleasure this week.

It was knowing that I had stared down a 49 year old monster and lived to tell the tale.

Facing my fear  is this week’s simple pleasure.

*****

Sharing this with Dayle at
A Collection of This and That
For her Simple Pleasures party.
Head on over to enjoy other simple pleasures.