What if it really was the end of the world?

We weren’t supposed to be alive today.

…According to the Mayans, anyway.

“The 2012 phenomenon was a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events would occur around 21 December 2012. This date was regarded as the end-date of a 5125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.^[7] Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae were proposed as pertaining to this date, none of them accepted by mainstream scholarship,” says Wikipedia.

In other words, it was all just a bunch of boloney.

I know I wasn’t alone in the dismissive belief that there was absolutely nothing to worry about. I barely batted my eyelids as the clock struck 12, and I certainly didn’t stock pile cases of canned ham in an underground bunker “just in case”.

No, except for multiple Facebook status’, a couple fun office musings about not having to actually do work and an oddly timed mass dumping of snow on the Nation’s Capital (#snowpocalypse) … today seems like every other day in the calendar year, Mayan or otherwise.

But amid all the jokes, theories and naysayers grew something sort of sweet. Sardonic or not, a variation of this phrase was tossed around almost as much as outlandish predictions and proverbs:

“Incase tomorrow is the end of the world, I love you.”

Short, sweet, and moderately sarcastic, it’s the kind of thing that can stop even a sceptic like me in her tracks.

If time suddenly stopped, did you say all you needed to? Would you be happy with the way you lived your life? Would you have regrets?

As I become anxious for 2013 and all the possibilities it will bring, I’m also looking back on the year of 2012, one that, for me, felt like it was in a constant state of fast-forward.

This year, three of my very best friends left Ottawa, moving on from a city that was just a stepping stone in their lives – forcing us to say goodbye, like I had done at least three times before, in the past.

And while our priorities change, our to-do lists get longer, our lives become impossibly busy and excuses are readily available, somehow, if there’s one thing that the past 12 months have taught me – and if there’s one thing I’m thankful for on a day that was supposed to bring Armageddon – it’s that while physical distance grows, so does effort, understanding and determination.

Of all the joy that in a nutshell brings, in its various forms, my greatest sense of pride comes when people say, “You guys have such a special friendship.” We do, we are lucky.

And while those I hold near and dear to my heart extend past the small circle of the ‘shell, it’s one more excuse to talk, and laugh and just be there for women I couldn’t be without.

So while I do admit that I am somehow thankful to still be sitting at my desk, eagerly awaiting a Christmas season that will be filled with warm exchanges with some of the people this post is dedicated to, if the Mayans were right, and today didn’t exist, I can assure you there’d be one hell of a reunion going on, right now, somewhere in the sky.

Sometimes all it takes is a little Judgement Day talk, to make you judge what really means the most to your day to day.

So in a nutshell, 2013 I dare you to bring on your best doomsday prediction…   being in a bunker somewhere with my besties doesn’t really sound so bad.