The End of the World.

Apparently, the world's supposed to end on Solstice. So much for worrying about my student loans.

While at the New Place this weekend, after discovering that this is a bit worse than we thought (i.e., the foundation needs a lot of work, and we really need a general contractor to tell us how much), a Helpful Friend asked me, "How long are you and the Husband planning on staying here, anyway?"

I realized I had no answer.

The Husband and I have agreed that this is a short-term solution until we can actually buy a little place with a little acreage, but whether this means five years, ten years, or eight months, we really have no idea. I may get an office gig offer that's just too good to pass up and teach only on weekends. He may get a better-paying job elsewhere thanks to another Helpful Friend who was at the New Place this weekend. One of us may be hurt or killed on the way to work/on our jobs/at the mall by some mentally ill person with weapons.

A lot of people's worlds ended last week on December 14th.

I don't know how you parents stand it; how do you send your children out to school after something like this without liberal doses of Valium? For you, I mean, though the kids might need some, too. I cannot imagine the horror of just-another-school-day turning into the knowledge that you will never see your beloved child alive again in this incarnation. We expect to bury our parents, but I don't think anyone expects to bury their children. Especially not like this.

But then, horse-loving children die while riding. School buses crash, children are on planes that fall from the skies, there are drunk drivers bloody everywhere at this time of year. Kids get cancer or meningitis. Hell, a girl I went to high school with had a brain aneurysm at eighteen and died while driving home from a volleyball game. So I suppose you do it the way we all go out into the world each day - having faith that, in all likelihood, everyone will return home relatively intact.

We make plans for the future because most of us need to, I think. I don't personally know anyone who just wakes up and says, "Well, let's see what happens today." So the Husband and I are planning to fix the New Place and be there for a while, but we have no idea how long that is, because life is uncertain.

The world ends every day.