A Pocket of Time

It was not a normal Monday. 
He had just cooked us dinner and as we sat down to eat at his new dining room table,
we lost electricity.
Without missing a beat he was up lighting candles and turning on flashlights.

The reality of the devastation that the storm would bring wouldn’t fully hit me until the end of the week when I was back in my own apartment watching the news.
Until then, we were in a bubble.

By Wednesday work would be fully cancelled for the week and not on a day to day basis.
Electricity and trains would slowly start being restored.
Until then though I was very much aware that this scenario was a fantasy come true for me.

It was my beginning of a rom com.
That great bonding montage you never think will happen in real life..
the elevator you get stuck in with the cute stranger,
the three day road trip you end up doing last minute with your crush.

Time that is given to you so you can just be you with someone you care about,
and nothing else getting in the way.

We had no lights, phones, cable or internet.
We had beer and wine and books and board games.
We told each other stories.
We asked each other questions.
We flirted and played.
We had the kind of good sex you really only have while on vacation in a hotel room far away from real life.

And I knew it wasn’t real.

The stress of work and family drama would come back.
We’d be two people again trying to fit in each other's lives and figure out where we stand.

But in those 5 days, even though I wore no makeup and his pajamas everyday,
I liked how we fit together.
Though I missed hot showers and my contacts
and my books and my own bed and lip gloss,
I liked how we fit together.

It could’ve been the circumstances of Sandy finally putting us in the same space
or it could’ve been us becoming the good part of us again.

Later I’d feel lucky. Absolutely lucky and guilty. From this storm I got a staycation with candles and good sex, while others had their life destroyed.

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