It’s fitting, I suppose, that on a day when the nation celebrates its independence, it gets hammered home to me just how dependent I am. As much as I like to think of myself as independent, I’d have a hard time getting by on my own. I’m no mountain man, no pioneer. The world I live in has made me depend on forces and circumstances way beyond my own control.

The point hit hard today when my power went out early this morning. Not only did I have no electricity, but there was also no running water in this house. I couldn’t shave or shower or flush. If I’d been a real mountain man, that wouldn’t have bothered me. As a child of the technological age who’s only pretending to live in the wilderness, I was blindsided by my own dependence.

Another thing I depend on is my health, and those little red pills that help me breathe. They haven’t been working well lately (and I’m stuck between doctors). Last night was the worst I’ve had. I expect to have trouble breathing, and to suffer from serious drainage problems, especially this time of year when the grasses are high and dry and waving in the wind. But what I went through last night was a new experience for me.

There were times during the night when I found myself gasping for breath. I couldn’t breathe through my nose, and something was making it so that I couldn’t swallow. That’s a frightening combination, because the only way I could unclog my throat was to hold my breath and wait for the breathing to stop. At least one time I thought I would pass out, or worse.

So I stayed home today, forgoing the celebrations and illuminations and the like. I nursed myself as much as possible, and I waited patiently for the electricity to deliver me back to the real world. It was off for at least three and a half hours; it went out before I got out of bed, so I couldn’t really tell how long the outage lasted. I’m sure it seemed longer than it was, although I got a lot of reading done that wouldn’t have been possible if I’d had the computer and the TV to distract me.

Sad to say, on this day of dependence, I was totally on my own, at least physically. I had moral support from the family, for which I’m grateful. And I had the prerecorded voice at the end of the utility company’s help line. Do you know their menus are all voice activated now? To report an outage, they tell you to speak “outages,” and then when you do you get, “I’m sorry, we didn’t understand your response.” That’s the kind of nonsense we’re dependent upon these days.