2012 was not the End. Yay?

Last year, I must say, was interesting. It was predicted that the world as we knew it would come to an end on December 21, 2012. And I was worried… although I didn’t admit it, not even if you put a gun to my head. But I was. Worried.

So I guess for the first time I realized that I was getting old after all. Despite my resistance, I constantly worry all the time these days. The surest sign of ageing is not the lines around your eyes or the wrinkles on your forehead or those flabby arms. Those can easily be fixed. No. The surest sign of ageing is the fact that you worry about things that didn’t worry you at all before.

I’m not saying that I truly believed the Mayan prediction of apocalypse. Just like many others, I laughed at their prophecy and often made fun of it on Twitter. But the truth is… deep down… there was that constant and annoying question: “what if it turns out to be true?”

The question was loud within me. What’s worse, it triggered many more questions; mainly about death. Am I ready to die? Would I ever see my daughters again before I die? (Considering that both of them don’t live at home anymore) Does dying hurt? And how about the kids? Would they die, too? How would they die? Would they feel hurt at the face of death? Cause God forbid I don’t ever want to see them suffer. Would I be able to give them a call in the last few moments of life and exchange a few tender “I love yous”? You know – just like in the movies?

And as December approached, I secretly hated people who made fun of it, thinking… hey, stop it! It could be true!

In short, I was an emotional wreck the whole year last year because of that damn prediction. If I took it out on you, I'm sorry... :p

But here we are, in the beginning of 2013. Nothing out of the ordinary happened in 2012. People still logged forests and exploited coral reefs. Palm oil was still the liquid gold. Animals were senselessly slaughtered. Politicians and (most) businesspersons still lied through their teeth about it. The Indonesian president was still SBY and he was still as useless as ever. Humans continued to prove to be the worst species that ever walked the face of the Earth. But Mother Earth didn’t split her crust to swallow us all. The sun didn’t launch a massive solar storm against us. Sure there were natural disasters everywhere. But those happened every year at different places. So nothing out of the ordinary happened in 2012. We’re still here.

Does it mean I will stop worrying this year? Probably not. Haha. If it’s a privilege of getting older, then I’m gonna embrace it, damn it! And worry about everything. (I can see my kids frowning. But yes, I’ll worry about you guys, too!) But at least in 2013 I don’t have to worry about the end of the world anymore. I don’t, right? No one has found another old scripture from ancient times that said anything bad about 2013, right? RIGHT?

Mostly I’m just talking to myself here. I’m not suddenly turning into an optimistic person. After all, I still firmly believe that optimists are basically people in denial. Nevertheless, I’m still hoping for all the clichés. So here’s to all of us. May we all have the perfect clichés of health, happiness, love, world peace and all of that good stuff. Cheers and happy new year!

PS: To all of you who are saying, “Hey, Rin… Age gracefully…”, drop dead now and go to hell! There’s no such thing as ageing gracefully. And there’s nothing graceful about growing old. It sucks. And that’s the truth.