If I Die Tomorrow, It Was Nice to Know Ya

I don't think I'm the only person who is business as usual in my frontal lobe, working and feeding the cat and running errands, while playing in the background is a horror-filled monologue informing me that we're all going to die.

Now I know what all those people on doomed trains and airplanes feel like, when there's nothing to do but wait and see whether the outcome is a last-minute miracle save, or a Hollywood-worthy crash and burn.  I went to bed last night, as those involved with the North Korean nuclear specter artfully changed the word "threat" to "rhetoric," thinking "What if I wake up just to go to sleep permanently?"

This isn't my usual slice-of-life post. I'm not feeling very cheerful today, and I can't see the humor in this experience. Except that I keep finding myself telling friends and family how much I love them, and then I acknowledge that if nothing catastrophic comes to pass, I'm going to feel awfully stupid about how goopy I got. It goes something like this: "This is why I love you, it was really great to have you in my life, and if nothing happens please forget how passionate this sounded."

I'm scared, because I have so little faith that cool heads will prevail. I'm terrified at the prospect of anyone getting hurt in this fiasco. There are people just as frightened as we are in a few other countries.

I'm ashamed, in advance, because I know that there will be some awful, disgraceful relief if something doesn't happen here, but happens someplace else. If we get to say "whew!" at someone else's expense.

I'm kicking myself for not using my life better, for not loving that one guy when I had the chance, for not letting go of anger when it would have been so easy to, for not apologizing when someone deserved it, for not learning two or three languages, for not volunteering more, for not adding a few more countries to the list of those I've visited, for not always being the person who is my best me, because some days my head and heart and soul are lazy. But this is good to know: when I look at my life from a "what if the worst happens" perspective, I'm pretty comfy in the loving and kind department. No regrets there.

Today I have one foot in a world where family and friends and my house and car are intact, and one foot in a scorched-earth dystopia. I can't jolly myself out of it. This is real. It's possible. And I just want to tell you - if I die tomorrow, it was nice knowing you.

© 2017 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie