What Is An Emergency?

I've recently come to realize that you can learn a lot about someone and their life by how they define and how they react to an emergency.

5 years ago I would have considered the following things examples of emergencies:

• Getting a flat tire/Car breaking down
• Losing my cell phone and not finding it for at least several hours or days
• Not having enough money in my bank account to pay for my cell phone bill (Hey, I was 18... Didn't have many bills yet)
• Failing a class in school (which I never even came close to doing)
• Not having some of the luxuries I grew up expecting to always have:  like heat, hot water, and electric.
• And of course, anything that could cause me or my loved ones any physical harm

Currently, now that I've lived a little more, this is what I consider an emergency:

• Anything that causes (or could cause) bodily harm, illness, or death to any of my loved ones or myself including, but not limited to:  Homelessness, Illness, Car accident, complications during surgery, natural disasters, being stranded somewhere without food or water.

As some of us mature and endure more tough things in life, we begin to learn that not everything which makes life more difficult is an emergency.  Negative things happen to everyone every day, but most of those things are just minor inconveniences.  For example:  Losing your cell phone.  No one in the entire world has ever or will ever become hurt or ill or dead because they have lost their cell phone.  And no one dies because they got a flat tire or couldn't pay one of their bills.  (Of course there are random exceptions, like if someone trapped in a burning building loses their cell phone and can't call for help.  But if you're going to nitpick you are missing my point.)

Not all of us define "emergency" the same way.  Today we had a snowstorm which caused widespread electrical outages in our area.  We were without power or running water for about 11 hours today.  It was about 34 degrees outside.  People were freaking out.  I'm not exaggerating.  People had no idea what to do.  Eric, his mom, Ricky, and I were fine.  We didn't feel like it was an emergency at all.  We lived without heat, hot water, TV, and internet (off and on) for months before we came here and we adjusted to the outage with ease.  We just put on some heavier clothes so we could stay warm and went about our business like everything was normal, assuming the power would be on soon.  But a particular loved one of ours was pacing all over the house and calling everyone he knew to theorize about when the electric would be back on.  He was guessing it would take a week, and everyone he spoke to was as traumatized by the electrical outage as he was.  He also complained at least once every 5 minutes that it's "freezing" cold in the house and that our son was going to get sick from the temperature.  It really was not that cold in the house, it was like 60 degrees inside.  He clearly demonstrated in his behavior that he has lived comfortably for most (if not all) of his life and has no idea how to adjust when the luxuries are taken away from him, however briefly.  He's worked hard to pay his bills so I won't say he's just "lucky" to have never experienced the hardships I've experienced recently.  He earned everything he has, but I do believe he takes a lot of it for granted.  I don't think he realizes how lucky he is, not only to have a home, but also to always have hot showers, hot meals, and a warm bed.  There are lots of people who work as hard as him who don't have all of those things, and that is really a tragedy.

I'm not trying to put anyone down, but what I observed today was fascinating.  It's really interesting to see how different people react to things like this.  It seems that the people who have had some tough times (financially, specifically) are better able to handle these type of inconveniences when they arise than those who have never lived for longer than a few hours without heat, air conditioning, electric, cable, internet, running water, etc.  I do not wish financial hardship on anyone, and certainly not homelessness, but I feel that every hardship my family has faced these past several months has taught us all about what really matters in life and what is truly an emergency.  I wish more people out there could learn these lessons without doing it the hard way!

I feel really proud of myself for all the knowledge and strength I gained recently as a result of our hard times.  Just a few months ago when the heat got turned off, I was appalled by the fact that I could no longer get a hot shower.  I refused to go near the bathtub for days because I was so not going to take a cold bath.  And then just 2 weeks ago I was staring homelessness right in the face and somehow enduring it.  How did I go from *Too good for a cold shower* to *homeless, and enduring it* within a matter of weeks?  I toughened up!  I cried a lot, hugged my husband a lot, played with my son a lot, and I learned as I went.  But now I'm a better person.

I can live without cable, internet, a cell phone, or hot water forever if I have to.

I can live without heat- at least when the temperature outside is as low as the 30's, and I can do just fine.

I can live without electricity for long periods of time.  I imagine I could live without it forever if I lived in a mild climate where it was neither too hot nor too cold outside to survive in a home without heat/AC.

I never thought I'd have to live without any of those things, but I'm glad I know that I can.

Life since I met Eric has been hard.  Nothing has come easily to us, except loving each other, and I accept that.  I often think that God had to throw these type of hardships at us to balance out our life and to further strengthen our relationship.  Our relationship is beautiful.  We never have conflict between the two of us, so we have to experience conflicts elsewhere in our life together in order for us to grow as a couple and learn how to work together to endure and solve problems.  I get that, and I'm thankful that I have had the opportunity to grow so much as an individual and as a couple through all of our hardships so far.

But really, God, it would be awesome if you'd cut us a break now.  =)  I think we've learned and grown quite enough for now...