Millennium.
7 years
1 month
9 days
10 hours...
... a half hour before it arrived...
I sat at my living room window, back in Seagate, staring at a New York City skyline. The now ghost towers still standing... but not for long, I thought.
For years I had developed a complex. An unbearable weight which I cast onto myself via the musings of my peers, and the not too infrequent television program on the subject. Though I was not without my share of enjoyment, of growing up and taking part in all that adolescence had to offer, I still felt like I was not granted enough time. I felt this implicitly, weeping into my pillow many nights.
Up to this point I had always tried to make the best of what was given me. It began when I started to truly grasp my mortality and understood that for any reason... I could not be around the next second, so long as that is what was in the cards.
I was 13 or so. Junior high school was the hardest time to deal with it. I used to be disheartened so easily. Sometimes it only took one word to have my mood polarized. The mid 90's had a great amount of "end time" programming. All of the kids at my school would be watching because their favorite sitcoms were tacked onto one end of the show, so they sat through at least one segment of it. That was enough for them to start talking about it on the bus. I remember trying to push my mind into isolation, wishing I could shut off my ears so I hadn't heard them mention it, hoping that by lunch time I would let go of what was absorbed on the way to school.
The X-Files both soothed and tormented me. It was my respite, my weekly reprieve, as well as a perpetuator of nightmare. It played on my acceptance of the scientific and extreme possibilities, manifesting in my sleep, by conjuring up frightening attempts at my abduction by aliens. Still it brought peace, as it deferred the doom and gloom I felt for at least one or two days until...
... Nostradamus, Y2K, giant meteors, tsunamis, plagues, nuclear weapons...
...the simple mention of any one of these and many other words, would incite feelings of the deepest dread. Fears abound that something might happen any minute. I closed myself off from many people, trapped in my own brain, I could literally block out a school yard full of rowdy teenagers without even trying. During times of normal mental states I made good friends, and it had been those friends who came up to me in those moments, asking me if I was ok. Still most wondered why I was so quiet. I am shy by nature, but back then it was more than just that. I was afraid... every... day. You all wanted to know, but none of you would have taken me seriously... none of you were on that level with me, except Bill. That just goes to show how much more mature we were mentally, and as cocky as it sounds I already know that it's true, and it's validated still.
I obsessivly milled through my mind what most wouldn't have entertained until they were in college.
It built up over time. Theories and ideas compiled themselves onto one another. One prophecy connected to another prophecy, and my mind became wracked by so many possible combinations of the Apocalypse. A tropical storm by my home, I saw never ending and flooding all of New York. A rumble through the house caused by a garbage truck I didn't hear, the beginnings of an earthquake that was never supposed to be. Awakened by the blast of a fog horn from a passing ship, to me was Gabriel's Horn waking our souls to leave the human shell and be Judged by God. A thunder-less and blinding flash from a passing lightning cloud, for that instant I prayed that it wasn't the initial flash of a nuclear weapon destroying the city.
I sat at my living room window, back in Seagate... on December 31, 1999...
...thirty minutes till the new year... contemplating all of the ends.
To say that it was the longest half hour of my life would be a lie. It came faster because I didn't want it to. I stared and I saw the city crumble under a giant red mushroom, wondering how long it would take for the shock wave to hit me. Before I knew it we were mere seconds away.
10
I'll never attend College
9
I'll never become a Video Editor
8
I'll never find a true love
7
I'll never live on my own
6
I'll never have any kids
5
I'll never see my friends or make any new ones
4
I'll never get to say I love you to someone I care for ever again
3
I'll never be forgiven for mistakes I've made
2
I'll never be able to learn anything else about life
1
This... is not... fair
"Happy New Year!"
..................
The world did not end.
1 month
9 days
10 hours...
... a half hour before it arrived...
I sat at my living room window, back in Seagate, staring at a New York City skyline. The now ghost towers still standing... but not for long, I thought.
For years I had developed a complex. An unbearable weight which I cast onto myself via the musings of my peers, and the not too infrequent television program on the subject. Though I was not without my share of enjoyment, of growing up and taking part in all that adolescence had to offer, I still felt like I was not granted enough time. I felt this implicitly, weeping into my pillow many nights.
Up to this point I had always tried to make the best of what was given me. It began when I started to truly grasp my mortality and understood that for any reason... I could not be around the next second, so long as that is what was in the cards.
I was 13 or so. Junior high school was the hardest time to deal with it. I used to be disheartened so easily. Sometimes it only took one word to have my mood polarized. The mid 90's had a great amount of "end time" programming. All of the kids at my school would be watching because their favorite sitcoms were tacked onto one end of the show, so they sat through at least one segment of it. That was enough for them to start talking about it on the bus. I remember trying to push my mind into isolation, wishing I could shut off my ears so I hadn't heard them mention it, hoping that by lunch time I would let go of what was absorbed on the way to school.
The X-Files both soothed and tormented me. It was my respite, my weekly reprieve, as well as a perpetuator of nightmare. It played on my acceptance of the scientific and extreme possibilities, manifesting in my sleep, by conjuring up frightening attempts at my abduction by aliens. Still it brought peace, as it deferred the doom and gloom I felt for at least one or two days until...
... Nostradamus, Y2K, giant meteors, tsunamis, plagues, nuclear weapons...
...the simple mention of any one of these and many other words, would incite feelings of the deepest dread. Fears abound that something might happen any minute. I closed myself off from many people, trapped in my own brain, I could literally block out a school yard full of rowdy teenagers without even trying. During times of normal mental states I made good friends, and it had been those friends who came up to me in those moments, asking me if I was ok. Still most wondered why I was so quiet. I am shy by nature, but back then it was more than just that. I was afraid... every... day. You all wanted to know, but none of you would have taken me seriously... none of you were on that level with me, except Bill. That just goes to show how much more mature we were mentally, and as cocky as it sounds I already know that it's true, and it's validated still.
I obsessivly milled through my mind what most wouldn't have entertained until they were in college.
It built up over time. Theories and ideas compiled themselves onto one another. One prophecy connected to another prophecy, and my mind became wracked by so many possible combinations of the Apocalypse. A tropical storm by my home, I saw never ending and flooding all of New York. A rumble through the house caused by a garbage truck I didn't hear, the beginnings of an earthquake that was never supposed to be. Awakened by the blast of a fog horn from a passing ship, to me was Gabriel's Horn waking our souls to leave the human shell and be Judged by God. A thunder-less and blinding flash from a passing lightning cloud, for that instant I prayed that it wasn't the initial flash of a nuclear weapon destroying the city.
I sat at my living room window, back in Seagate... on December 31, 1999...
...thirty minutes till the new year... contemplating all of the ends.
To say that it was the longest half hour of my life would be a lie. It came faster because I didn't want it to. I stared and I saw the city crumble under a giant red mushroom, wondering how long it would take for the shock wave to hit me. Before I knew it we were mere seconds away.
10
I'll never attend College
9
I'll never become a Video Editor
8
I'll never find a true love
7
I'll never live on my own
6
I'll never have any kids
5
I'll never see my friends or make any new ones
4
I'll never get to say I love you to someone I care for ever again
3
I'll never be forgiven for mistakes I've made
2
I'll never be able to learn anything else about life
1
This... is not... fair
"Happy New Year!"
..................
The world did not end.