And so here we are, at the beginning...
I'm writing this on the fifteenth of December. It's twenty to three in the afternoon, it's Saturday, and it's ten days away from Christmas Day. If, of course, we make it that far - if the Mayans are to be believed, it’s six days away from the end of the world, or, at least, the end of the world as we know it...
The end of the world as we know it. I've never really understood that expression. It's a big world and I'm just one person, who's lived on a tiny island in the middle of the Mediterranean for most of his life. Due to limitations of both time and money, I feel that, to be honest, I don't really know the world all that well. The world knows me even less, despite the fact that we’ve been in contact, literally, for the last thirty-nine years.
But I digress…
Personally, I don't believe the Mayan prediction. In fact, from what I've read and heard over the past year, I get the impression that the Mayans don't even believe the Mayan prediction. But let's imagine, just for the length of the next paragraph, that they were right…
I, for one, would be rather annoyed. Not only because the predicted date for the end of the world happens to be the twenty-first of December, which means that it coincides with the last working day of the year before EC closes down for a much-anticipated two-week break, but also because my salary comes in the next day, and I’d like to have the opportunity to spend some of it before the Planet Nibiru knocks us all out of orbit. Also, I have quite a few new and exciting things lined up for two thousand and thirteen - things that I’ve spent most of this year setting up...
I'll get back to these 'things' in a couple of minutes. They are, in a way, relevant to this article of beginnings and endings. Or endings and beginnings, if you prefer.
I was sitting at a table in my favourite café earlier this afternoon, watching the world go by and trying to think of what I could write about this month, and it suddenly occurred to me that everything everywhere is made up endings and beginnings. Every single day, there's a million of them; tiny little stops and starts, all cued up and waiting patiently to take place. I could see them happening in the café as I sat there sipping a large Americano...A group of friends at one table trying to figure out the bill for the breakfast they’d just wolfed down in between loud guffaws of laughter, while another couple stood patiently to one side, waiting for the table...
End...Begin...
At another table, a grandmother listening with a smile on her face to her pregnant granddaughter, who was chatting animatedly and pulling baby clothes out of a Mothercare bag...
One person nearing the end. A new beginning just a few weeks down the line.
The breakfast waitress, now out of her uniform, handing the shift over to the lunchtime waitress, who was tying her apron around her waist...
Endings and beginnings - one constantly replacing the other so seamlessly that you don’t even notice them unless you happen to be looking out for them. And yes, I do look out for them. Because if life is just a series of endings and beginnings, then they need to be acknowledged. Otherwise our lives will simply become a never-ending monotony of perpetual boredom, where nothing ever changes. And given a choice between that and the end of the world, I'd choose the latter.
This is why we celebrate New Year's Eve. We wave (or, more accurately, drink) goodbye to the old year, and then immediately start wondering what the new one will bring. In my case - provided that the Mayans were wrong - it should bring quite a lot...
I spent a large portion of this year writing scripts for a thirteen-episode television show, and if all goes well, it will be on television in early 2013, at which point I'll need to start working on the next thirteen for Season Two. I also wrote a screenplay for a feature film, and if all goes well...well, you get the idea. There's also another television series in the pipeline, but I'm still only halfway through the first episode on that one...
Apart from the above, I wrote a children's book - in collaboration with my five-year-old son, Jake, who did the illustrations - which is, as I type this out, raising money for a charity in Kenya. I'm looking forward, at the beginning of 2013, to presenting the St Michael Foundation For Kenya with a rather large cheque.
And I really, really have to get back to work on my own novel, which has been on hold for over a year now. Oh, and I need to work on the Teacher’s Resource Book I'm currently trying to put together...
In other words, I've been busy all year, and as 2012 ends, I'm ready and waiting for all these new and exciting (at least for me) beginnings. So, to hell with the Mayans.
But every beginning has to follow on from an ending...
I wrote the first article for 'English In Your Inbox', under the heading of "What I Mean Is...", in April 2007. And now, five years and approximately sixty articles later, I'm very close to the end of my last one.
What I Mean Is… this one.
It's been a lot of fun. I still have a lot of things to say, but I think I need to say them somewhere else and in different ways. So I'm done. All I have left to say is have a great Christmas, and the happiest of New Years. Have a million happy endings, and just as many exciting beginnings...and thanks for reading.
And so here we are...at the end.
By Danny
Danny is a teacher at our Malta English school.
