Hoping not to sleep through the rapture

Many years ago, when my friends and I decided to go back to Cancun for vacations, we met a couple from New York. Typical of couples, she was tough and opinionated and he was the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet. She turned us on to the joys of timesharing resales and long-distance friendships, and our relationship was a mix of west-coast courtesy and east-coast ball-breaking. We loved her vodka-soda-vodka cocktails and she loved our never-ending eagerness to be entertained. Despite the fact that after putting up with her increasing drunken raves at my inability to "make it" in Cancun (I wasn't trying to "make" anything, I didn't have to work and I only planned to be there for the time that I actually WAS there) I had to end our friendship, she remains a person who has made an impact on me: the best kind of impact - not all good, not all bad. Joanie died in her sleep last week. I wasn't there in the end, but she'll be with me forever in many ways. As the saying goes, rest in peace, Joan. Nobody will ever say you didn't jump into people's lives and drop anchor.

After I got the news, I started up with that introspective thinking that one entertains when the latest news one gets about a long-lost friend is about their death. I started thinking about past relationships that have fallen by the wayside, and how it's a pity that we let that happen, and how nothing couldn't be unbroken when it comes to the people that have once been important to us. I thought about mending fences and how life is short and swallowing pride and making peace. I considered phone calls and emails and looked for signs in everyday life.

Then the next day I considered something else. Everything happens for a reason. Not all broken relationships need to be mended. Sometimes people just don't come back. Isn't it better, in theory, to remember the good times and not tempt fate with the attempt to revive them? I suppose it's good to reach out, let them know you think of them sometimes, wish them well and promise to meet for coffee. But isn't it a bit self-serving to only have these inspirations when you hear that someone died?

I think I believe that the past, for the most part, should be relived in stories and not rehashed in person. Sometimes you just can't go back. Sometimes when you go back it's a disaster. Sometimes the only thing you have in common with someone IS the past, and all that does is make for a future full of awkward pauses. I'm not going to force the issue - if it doesn't happen organically, then maybe it just wasn't meant to happen anyway.

And on that note, I understand the rapture is happening this afternoon, and if that's the case, none of this matters anyway. I haven't read anything of real substance on the subject, because I don't like newspapers and long boring articles on the web - I'm more of a "brief enough for a Facebook post" kind of a gal. Apparently I think my time (even the time it takes to read a five-paragraph article) is way more valuable than that. Anyway, from what I've gleaned, all the goody-two-shoes (I mean the Saved) will be floating up to Heaven at around 6pm and the rest (of us?) will be down here for a number of days in pure pandemonium. It should be interesting. I suppose if I read any of the articles I'd know if they would actually be floating up, or if they'd just disappear in a poof of dust, but in any event, it would be interesting to see. I hope I'm not napping during that because it'd be a shame for you guys to miss out on my first hand account of it. You know, because I live right by a Christian church and I'm guessing the Saved will all be meeting up beforehand.

Pre-rapture, however, means I've got to get the hell off my ass and shower (no bad hair for the end-of-days) and then go on the hunt for some swimwear and assorted vacation-style clothing. Because the only real upward-moving I want to do is the ascent on JetBlue that levels off at 32,000 feet and takes me south.