Preparing for the End of the World.

“Nobody is steering this ship. We’re all just looking nervously at the approaching iceberg & wondering if we can raid the bar.”

–Amanda Palmer

My aunt and I used to joke about the end of the world the same way dissatisfied and disheartened Americans toss around the idea of moving to Canada after each presidential election: “It’s okay that George Bush won the race, the world is ending in a few years anyway; we only have to muddle through this all just a little bit longer,” we’d tell each other sympathetically, half in jest—but our sentiments were ultimately anchored in unspoken sincerity. The apocalypse has always been a quenching conversational elixir for us. Every holiday, while the rest of the family gossiped around the dinner table, my aunt and I would sneak out to the garage to smoke cigarettes and compare notes on our latest end of the world findings. From the ancient Mayan predictions and Nostradamus’ doomsday prophecies, to the more recent conspiracy theories foretelling catastrophic solar flares and the possibility of the Earth’s poles unexpectedly and violently switching, we happily accepted and swallowed each other’s cataclysmic ear candy, and giddily returned to the dinner table intoxicated by the thought of our own demise. 

I was thrilled to discover that my friends were also enchanted with the idea of the end of the world. One July evening, instead of watching the celebratory lightshow marking the birth of our nation, we drove in the opposite direction, the pyrotechnic stars bursting behind us. All we could see were the flares of the fireworks reflecting off of the clouds, as the sonic booms from the explosions overhead rattled the car. It felt like the city was being bombed. It felt like Armageddon, and we were enthralled. We sped home and spent the remainder of the evening drafting blueprints for a doomsday bunker and planning and preparing for the end of the world. 

In many regards, entertaining the thought of the possible end of days was comforting for us. Knowing that the fate of the world is completely out of your control, it’s a relief, really. As the sky comes crashing down, you don’t have to worry about that painting you never finished. You don’t have to worry about remembering birthdays, or running red lights or taking your vitamins, or making sure your hair doesn’t look too stupid, or finding a practical job, or paying the rent on time. You don’t have to worry about keeping track of the pain of the surrounding villages, or your carbon footprint, or the hereditary diseases slinking through your DNA, or finding love. The only thing you have to concern yourself with is staying alive. 

But for my friends and my aunt and I, our survival was not a priority, or even on our agenda. Despite our young ages, we had grown disillusioned with life. We had become all too accustomed to its irritability, inconsistency and its transience. For years, we had fought to maintain a sense of stability, trying in vain to come to terms with each situation, make the best of it, consolidate, and actively engage in it, secretly hoping, that maybe this time, we could somehow magically sway the results in our favor. But we had learned that no amount of manipulation could prevent the world from turning, no amount of nitpicking could prevent the sky from falling, and no amount of manhandling could prevent a house in Kansas from being uprooted in a tornado and crashing down on us, again. And again. Despite our efforts, our loved ones died—a brother, a father, a mother—as did Santa Claus and fairy tale endings. Our hearts broke, as did our wills, as we had been in mourning for years too long. We had exhausted the cards that we had been dealt, and it’s not that we wanted new hands, we just wanted the game to be over. 

So when the skies suddenly blackened, and the television channels stopped transmitting and went off the air, and the colored emergency test patterns filled the screens, we knew it was our time, and we welcomed the end of the world with open arms. 

And we were more than prepared. As believers flocked to holy sanctuaries and shrines, and the politicians and scientists fled underground, we gathered our treasures, boarded up the windows, broke out the booze and bunkered down in our designated basement shelter. We had packed practical provisions of painkillers and champagne, cigarettes and chocolate cake. For once, we would call the shots, as they would be our parting shots, and our last. 

But as the hours passed, our excitement and anticipation waned. And the realities of our predicament began to sink in. As we sat, I wondered why any of us were even there. Too often we had confessed to secretly hoping cars would hit us as we crossed the street, or that satellites would come crashing down out of the sky and impale us. If we so desperately wanted to die, why hadn’t we killed ourselves already? If we so desperately wanted to die, why hadn’t we overdosed on all the drugs we attempted to numb ourselves with? If we so desperately wanted to die, why were we huddling in a basement bomb shelter, hiding from the one thing we truly craved, our deaths? All of my research proved that we weren’t meant to survive in troubled times, and yet we had survived a lifetime on this planet. We had always complained about having to dig ourselves out of winter each year, and yet, we shoveled out regardless. 

I thought about all sunsets I knew were painted specifically for me. I thought about all the times I tried to love and failed, and knew I wanted to try again. I thought about all the times I wanted to die and suddenly knew I was not ready. 

I poured myself some champagne and raised my glass: “Here’s to the end of the world, and here’s living despite the end. Here’s to our resilience and to our survival. Here’s to regaining our footing, despite quaked foundations, and here’s to dodging houses fall from the sky. Here’s to not jumping ship when things get too hard, and here’s to our capacity to persevere. Let us ride out this storm so that we can continue to live out the great human struggle with grace and ingenuity.”