Doomsday

The end of the world as we know it

On a bright summer afternoon in the mid-80s, minutes after one of my parents had returned home from running errands, a mass-mailed poster appeared, taped up in our hallway near my bedroom. 

It was a bright white glossy with yellow highlights and red and black writings and warnings plastered all over.  It, in bulleted points, stated the events leading up to the end of the world, which, if I remember correctly, was due just a few short months after this mailing was received.

My mom, who was the one to tape it to our hallway wall, thought it would be humorous to countdown along with it, knowing every bulleted point was ridiculous and never coming true.

Some of the time, more than other times, make me think about it and wish I could remember what exactly was listed.

I was young in the 80s, only reaching high school during the final gasp of the decade, but I read. A lot. I had a date with Tom Brokaw every night to watch the news. I devoured everything I could about the world, my anxious heart both excited to grow up and leave my tiny town and terrified that everything bad would happen to me. In hindsight, we have the words to describe the cultural shift that took place in the shadow of the ‘Me Decade’ that gave way to the decadence of neon, but then, as a kid, I did not.

I think a lot about living and growing during the height of Satanic Panic lately. I mean, how can you not when it echoes so loudly of today? At every turn, then, we were being warned that every single thing we did was going to cause our eternal damnation. Music, movies, Boy George, the color black, being sad, embracing new fads, not having friends, Care Bears, cartoons…I remember being afraid that everything was out to get me and then, later, incredulous that adults were not alright.

At every turn, now, they are warning us of the same with paranoia over rainbows and books and music and movies and new fads and old fads and…I’m still not convince that the adults are alright.

When did history repeating become so…short? So soon? So easily seen multiple times in my life?

Does right now feel like a fever pitch to anyone else? Like we’re on the edge of a canyon looking over to try and see the future but I can’t quite tell if someone is coming to help or push me over. In the 90s, my early adult years, I felt helped back up. Dating guys with eyeliner wasn’t rebellion, but preference and playing records backward in defiance of parents became a story you told about that friend of a friend and by the time Gore ran for President, you had forgotten his wife crusaded against music that now regularly plays while I pick up a loaf of bread and maybe a stick of butter. The crazy conspiracies of the 80s were in the rearview, except…maybe the scars from them never fully scabbed over.

I think about that countdown to the end sometimes, but can never remember exactly what was on it. Government … something? Wars in the middle east? The downfall of ‘traditional values’? Quit possibly. I am hard pressed to think that anything about this latest round of panic is new, but it does feel heightened, whether that’s because I’m now an adult or the internet amplifies or a little of both. And while nothing is being directly mailed to let me know the time of our mutual destruction, there have been moments when I wondered if Election Day would mark it anyway. It’s easy to slip into helplessness sometimes.

Because…I get it. Life is scary. There are legitimate fears at every corner. Things to worry over. Things to look out for. Foreign dictators that hate our way of life. American politicians that do the same. The cost of healthcare and getting sick. The erasing of seasons. Apathy. The worst of humanity with constant megaphones. People who think I don’t need rights and should defer to them. And not for the first time I wonder if the guy who made the 11x14 glossy my mom put up in our hallway was really thinking Satan would eventually get us or if his worry was closer to the truth: that we’re our own worst enemy and are going to drag everyone else down with us while trying to save ourselves. Just…maybe he messed up on his timeline. Just a bit.

Election Day Eve. Here we go. See you on the other side of all of this.