UNITED STATES—You never know how much you miss something until you don’t have it. Who would have imagined that an unexpected storm would completely destroy my neighborhood with trees being littered all over the streets, the transformer on my home being destroyed and me having no electricity for more than 5 days and counting!

Electricity is something that we all need to operate and function on a daily basis. No cell phone, no bathroom light, no refrigerator, no stove, no microwave, no toaster, no TV, no washing machine, no dryer, no ceiling fan, no computer, no internet, no nothing. I really tried to do everything in my power to keep myself busy, but it soon became a realization to me that life without power is a tough pill to swallow because you rely on it to do so much people.

However, you don’t appreciate the notion of electricity until you don’t have it. I had no idea how much I relied on the Internet to keep myself busy. Even worse was how much I took advantage of having a fully charged phone. However, when you have very limited battery and you are NOT able to charge it, than you conserve that energy as much as possible, but slowly, but surely it dies down people.  Want to surf the internet and find out what is going on in pop culture, you may as well forget about it because it will NOT be happening without electricity and if you do have a connection, it will NOT be as strong considering that you don’t have a router or strong internet signal to bounce towers and to your phone.

Yeah, you MIGHT be able to surf the net if your phone has a Wi-Fi connection or a signal, but it will NOT move at the same speed as if you had a router and electrical connections as you hope. When it comes to TV watching, I’ve missed over a week of TV shows, and the thought of even trying to catch up I know I will NOT be able to do so, even though my brain is telling me it is possible, it is NOT. No movies, no morning news to keep myself occupied, it was just an absolute bummer. Eating out became a theme of the week because I could not cook anything without power, so it was a chore in itself finding an actual restaurant in the region that was open and that had power.

Then it cost additional money and all the food that was purchased and inside the refrigerator and freezer had to be tossed in the trash. Ugh there is nothing worse than tossing food away and its worst when you just went grocery shopping and those items are no good people. Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night not easy, because you’re relying on a flashlight or candle to see what is going on. That is the worst part about not having any power, at night, if you think it is dark, you don’t know darkness until you have no power, talk about an actual blackout that is what I’ve encountered for more than a week with no answer in sight.

We didn’t just have massive trees tossed around the neighborhood and wires snapped, the transformer to our home was struck by lightning frying our box and putting us in a situation where additional work had to be completed, in addition, to our electrical box having to be fixed. After more than a week without power and still having NO IDEA when the power will be fixed after this unexpected storm, I’ve come to appreciate what I have while I have it. You never know with the snap of a finger, everything you’ve come to appreciate is gone and then you have to cope.

Written By Jason Jones