Come Again Another Day

Never has a flood light looked so miraculous! It may not seem like much to the unaided eye, but pulling up to our driveway this evening, this little light stood for so much: perseverance, ingenuity, strength, creativity, sanity, victory. Not to mention, the promised return of a cooled house.

The past 24 hours have been like a spontaneous mini-vacation for Jakub and I from reality (or to reality, I haven't decided). At first, we were so mesmerized by the rain and it's ferocity that we didn't even consider what the next few hours would hold; we just stood outside fully engulfed in the cool relief that comes when everything is crying out for rain and it finally appears.

When our lights started flickering, I had hoped the electricity would go out; I thought it would make the coming hour or so interesting. In reality, I felt like a kid again. It's the same feeling you get when hoping for a snow day. Any day of the week we could just turn out all the lights and have an evening like last night, but there's something about nature taking control that makes it all the more exciting.

I really had no idea that the power outage would last as long as it did. That's the tricky thing about being a grown up: you can't just enjoy when nature throws you a curve ball, you have to think about things like all the food in the refrigerator we bought the day before going bad. Thankfully that didn't actually happen and I got to spend a night (and the following day) with my husband completely uninterrupted by technology.

This meant we had to get creative with our time and we ended up doing something that reminded me of why I love this guy! We share so many of the same dreams and goals for our life together and that gives my heart so much peace.

We each took turns coming up with a topic for a list, and then we would each write 5 things going along with that topic and then compare lists. (Am I crazy to think that making lists is a fun idea?!) The topics ranged from things to accomplish by age 40, what we want to be known for, the top things we want to do that are out of our comfort zone, and where we'd like to retire and what we'd do in each city.

It was neat to see the types of things going on in our brains that we don't talk about regularly. It was also awesome to see how much we wanted the same things. I hope we can do this sort of activity every so often and really nurture our dreams and goals and make them a reality. I don't want to get in the way of Jakub reaching his goals and so it's important for me to know exactly what those are, and vice versa.

It was also pretty neat to compare how we each organized our lists on our paper. Mine was very neat, orderly, and balanced, and his was a jumbled mess mixed with doodlings that are out of this world. His was so chaotically organized and oozing creativity, while mine was meticulous and purposeful. That's very much the kind of people we are and it was interesting to see our personalities in something as little as list-making. (In fact, he caught me by surprise and made a mark on my paper and I almost lost it because it threw everything off! OCD, anyone?)

So, thank you rainstorm, you're welcome back any time you please.