You know what is spookier than Halloween? Sitting in your apartment on a Sunday evening, minding your business, knowing damn well you paid your electric bill, and suddenly everything goes black. I am talking not a flicker. Not a warning. Just complete darkness.
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Now, before you start questioning your finances, you must remind yourself that the bill was PAID. Plus, nothing will make you second-guess your money spending decisions faster than the lights going out when you know you handled your responsibilities.
Then, because you live in the hood, you already know
you cannot assume it is a simple little power outage. Your mind starts
wandering. Is it just my apartment? Did somebody hit a pole? Is the whole
neighborhood out? What the hell is going on? Then, moments later, your power
company sends that convenient text message informing you that your area is
experiencing an outage and that electricity won't be restored until HOURS
later.
Hours? As in plural?
Now, here is where the real horror story begins. You
are a single mother with two children. You are sitting in a dark apartment,
realizing there is truly nowhere for you to go. No family member around the
corner is telling you to bring the kids over. No significant other pulling up
to rescue the evening or calling to tell you pull up. There is no welcoming
house where you can just pack an overnight bag, grab your children, and wait
for the lights to come back on.
That is a different kind of darkness nobody really
talks about.
It is having to look at your children and remind them
that it is just y'all. It reminds them that sometimes things happen that are
out of our control and we have to figure them out together. It is knowing you
have a car sitting outside, but nowhere you feel genuinely welcome driving it. Truth
be told, having transportation does not mean you have somewhere to go. Oh, and having
people in your phone does not mean you have people in your corner, you can dial
up out the blue.
Sometimes it feels like nobody gives a fuck. Nobody is
checking to see if you and your children are okay. Nobody is offering a sofa, a
meal, or even a place to sit until the electricity comes back on. You
eventually get tired of wondering who you can call because the answer always
seems to be the same: nobody.
So, what do you do?
You thug the shit out.
You find that flashlight. You make sure your phone has
enough battery, get your children settled, and turn a frustrating situation
into another one of those memories where Mama figured it out. You laugh a
little because what else are you supposed to do? You might even crack a joke about
living in a haunted apartment, because apparently the ghosts have started
messing with the electricity.
However, underneath those jokes is a reality that hits
harder than any Halloween horror movie ever could.
Being the only dependable adult in your household is
exhausting. Not because you do not love your children, but because you do not always
get the luxury of falling apart. Even when you are frustrated, tired,
overwhelmed, or scared, you still have to be the person reassuring everybody
else that everything will be okay.
Sometimes, you wish somebody would reassure you for a
change.
The power company can give you an estimated
restoration time, however nobody can tell you when life will stop feeling like
you are constantly operating in survival mode. Nobody can tell you when you
will finally have that village people love talking about. Nobody can promise
you that the next inconvenience won't be another reminder of how much you are
carrying alone.
So tonight, we are sitting in this apartment with a
flashlight. We are waiting for the electricity to return. There is no dramatic
rescue. There is no magical village appearing at the front door. It is just a
mother, her two children, and another unexpected situation we are going to make
it through.
Truthfully, speaking because that is what we do.
When those lights finally come back on, I will
probably go right back to washing dishes, preparing for another workday, and
doing whatever else needs to be done. Life does not stop, because you had a
rough evening.
If this night reminded me of anything, it is this,
handle your shit while the sun is still up. Stop putting off what you can do
today. An emergency won’t wait until you feel ready. Keep flashlights, portable
chargers, water, and nonperishable food close. Preparation will not stop the darkness
from coming, but it can keep the darkness from owning you.
The crazy part is, the day before, I had put a gym bag
in my trunk with two fleece throw blankets inside. No plan. No reason.
Something in me just said, Do it.
So, I did. Call it instinct. Call it survival. Either way, I am learning not to
ignore that voice.
I reminded my kids of the truth, I hate having to
teach them, it is just us. We do not have a list of people to call. Nobody is rushing
over to save the day. In real life, most people do not give a damn what happens
behind your closed door. So, we must stay ready. We must know how to survive on
our own.
I put my kids to sleep in the dark. I stayed awake,
listening, waiting, carrying all the thoughts I could not let them see. An hour
later, the lights came back on.
But that was the real ending to this
“What’s Spookier Than Halloween?” series: the electricity returned, but the
truth stayed. Power can be restored. The feeling that you have nobody to lean
on takes a lot longer to come back from.
So, therefore I will keep the flashlights charged, the trunk packed, and my kids close. Not because I want to live afraid, but because I know nobody is coming. Until life gives us something softer, we are going to survive it the way we always do. We are doing this thing together, prepared, and thuggin’ this shit out.
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