I don’t recall exactly, but if I had to guess, the memory was stirred from an image that was displayed on the Amazon Echo Show this morning. It was a photo of the house or the neighborhood blanketed in deep (for Austin) snow. It was the crippling winter storm Uri that hit us in mid-February of 2021. Five short years ago.

I immediately went to my laptop and started looking at photos from this day five years ago. I’d taken quite a lot of photos because we’d had a lot of snow and ice. The ice broke trees. School and businesses were shut down for weeks. We were without water. COVID was still a thing.

Call it survivalism, optimism, or just-not-giving-a-shitism, but I remember those days fondly. Seems like the rest of the region (especially our community, on social media) was freaking out and the ice and COVID were the apocolypse. I knew my family wasn’t going to endure the worst: death. We could melt snow. We had a pantry and freezer full of stuff that could sustain us. We could drive somewhere if we had to. We just accepted what we couldn’t control, settled in, hunkered down, and made the best of it. And our best was fun. I remember there being laughter.

I’d forgotten in recent years that, amidst the goings on at that time, I’d lost my job just 10 days prior. And it was a loss that swept me (and the rest of the team) off my feet. There were no hints or reasons to fathom layoffs. I was blindsided. I was comfortable at the job. It provided my family with stability and security. I’d no plans or reasons to look elsewhere.

And thus began a winter of discontent and some years of job floundering.

But I still look back on that February of 2021 and remember the happy times. We didn’t have water. We didn’t have school. We didn’t have a steady income. But we made out pretty alright.