The whole world seems so eager to be over.

Every time a scientist suggests a .001 chance of an asteroid hitting Earth, clickbait articles spell out our doom as an afterthought. As a species, we seem to be scrambling for the end, a finite finish to this mess, as if it hasn’t also been heart-achingly lovely, too. As if there aren’t oh so many animal-vegetable-minerals without clickbait who’d die, too.

Why are we so hot for the apocalypse?

That’s a high-concept question for you, right there.

Then, the answer comes. And like every human-ass fumbling fucking thing, it’s complicated. It’s simple. It’s all of the above.

We want to rest. That’s my theory.

We want to rest. We want to read a good book that allows us to rest. For a lot of people, that looks like the end of the world.

For me–and, I think, for a lot of other people–it means an answer to the question, “what now, now that it’s over?”

I was watching the Station Eleven show again the other day, and the line slapped me in the face like it does every time: My family lived and died before I met you. My family lived and died before I met you.

My dad died last week. My mom died when I was twenty. Both lost their minds first, and my daughter is six and prancing around right now in high-heeled glitter shoes, and my son is two weeks away from one and will bellow baby babble into every conversation, and my husband’s wit is sharper than anyone’s, and my family lived and died before I met you!

What now?

The ones who get the air time, who have the money and make the shimmering image of the world we supposedly live in, the world clickbait articles are based on–they seek rest. The rest of us can’t imagine it, and there are more of us than them, but we have less. More often than not, we’ve lost more. Losing more is not an exciting story for us. It’s reality.

We want an answer. What now?

I wrote a book this past year that tries to understand the question. The answer eluded me still by the end, but it gave me peace to understand the question.

What now?

Insane! The recognition.

There is a now, isn’t there!