end of days

Tonight my ten year old asked me why so many people think the world will end in 2012. I said I don't know. I said that pretty much everybody in their lifetime has wondered when this big thing we call life will come crashing down and end, if it will be in their lifetime, or their children. For some it causes panic; others run to their respective gods for solace and hope that even at the end, it will go on. There is something appealing to me about the end. An end. Any end. Just quietness and sanctuary in a dark eternity. cool and restful. Feeding the earth as she once fed me. I look forward to that. I believe that any god that is must provide this type of relief when we are gone. I can only hope. But for Natalee, I told her that I don't know. That the people that wrote the bible had one idea, the ancient Mayans another, but mostly, when a civilization gets too comfortable, we start waiting for the other shoe to drop. When we quit pioneering, pushing ahead, forging new paths and making new ways, we start to look for an easy way out. Apocalypto.  No, I haven't even seen that movie, but I think I will. If I can ever find my netflix copy of "The Outlaw Jesse James" and return it. It must be squirreled away with all of my EMS training records somewhere, safe from any chance of discovery, holding both my netflix queue and my recertification hostage. Some sort of apocalypse sounds kind of exciting. At least I wouldn't have to pay off my ridiculous credit cards.

But all of that doomsday stuff started making me circle the drain. The (organic of course) wine I drank didn't help, but seriously. What is the point? I am trying to rationalize to myself that of course the kids that are fighting both on the floor above me and the floor below me, really aren't being that bad, they're just being kids, but instead these ominous thoughts of absolute failure as a parent swirl in my brain and between bouts of yelling threats up or down some random stairway, I cry quietly to myself and pray to a god that I hope exists that he will keep them from killing each other. Keep me from killing them, And keep them from turning out to be such a wretch as I.