The last week before Christmas, the last day before the end of the world… Honestly, I kept asking myself all day, would I be doing this if the world were really ending tomorrow? The answer, of course, was always no. No, I wouldn’t have met with the other class mothers to sort out Christmas pageant problems over coffee this morning. No, I wouldn’t have gone to the gym. And definitely, no I wouldn’t have spent most of the morning packing for my trip to Houston. I wouldn’t have had white rice and vegetables for lunch, I wouldn’t have spent three hours at the hairdressers getting my hair de-frizzed so my mom doesn’t spend the next 19 days telling me how unkempt I look, and I would not have spent the past hour fighting with the British Airways website trying to get on their frequent flyer program.

What would I have done instead? I have no clue. I can’t imagine what sort of activities are appropriate if one’s existence were to be knowingly and expectedly wiped out. I definitely would have wanted to spend that time with my kids, eating Nutella, and watching cartoons. But I also would have wanted to spend that time alone with the Husband, enjoying… ahem… each other’s company. Or with my family, or my friends… But mostly I realized that if I were to cease to exist, or rather, when I cease to exist, cause there’s really no getting around that, is there? I would want to do it suddenly, unknowingly, as I go by my daily business, because, at the end of the day, I can’t imagine planning a perfect day. There would be too many “last things” I’d want to do, and that day would become never-ending, and all those last things would lose their significance, their “specialness”. I can’t imagine any one last thing that would make my total obliteration meaningful.

So I go about my business, sorting clothes into suitcases, trying to plan for everything as usual, I go about my day, my very mundane tasks, methodically, purposefully, because that is all I can do. Tomorrow the kids have their Christmas Pageant and I can’t forget the appropriate outfits, I have to distribute the last raffle tickets, I have to pack my carry-ons and unearth my passports from the mountain of unfiled crap all over my desk. I have to get two last-minute gifts and I have to go to the bank to get my engagement ring, without which I simply won’t travel but which can’t stay in the house cause we’ve been have a flurry of petty thefts in our neighborhood. I absolutely, positively, have to make it to the post office to send off a very important package. I have to get all teary-eyed and sniffley when my kids, an angel and a friar respectively, get onstage tomorrow afternoon. And then I have to quietly freak out about our trip on Saturday.

So you see, I don’t have time for the world to end. Not tomorrow.