At the moment I am so deep into vacation that I can’t bear to look at anything but non-challenging novels and crosswords in the local paper, but I am sure you mighty heritage bloggers out there have all commented on the quiet death of the 2012 myth. I’m quite happy to see it go myself. For the past 11 years this has constant subject of my general conversation with those not in the IN in archaeology circles. Not by choice, no, it just wiggled its way into conversation. Roughly 11 years ago I decided to ‘focus’ on the Maya and there 2012 was, waiting for me. I expect a few conversations about how ‘nothing happened’ in the coming weeks and then, poof, back to crystal skulls like normal.

Now for a personal heritage moment: the passing of the 2012 myth makes me feel surprisingly NOT old. I first heard word about it when I was 19 and I distinctly remember calculating that I would be 30 years old in December of 2012. I had such a strong feeling that 30 was incredibly old and thus 2012 was conceptual eons away. So far that it seemed like a convincing end of the world. I remember that period of my life as a time of hope and fear. Like I had to establish lines of thought and action to extend into a mysterious future that I was not really very good at thinking through. The future has always eluded me. It seemed so easy to ‘miss-step’ back then. Perhaps it was.

But things have ‘worked’, so to speak. I suppose they have to. In a way that is why I don’t write in this blog very much: I am in Anonymous Swiss Collector mode. Also, I don’t feel as old as I thought I would 11 years ago. It is 2012 and somehow 30 feels young and inexperienced. Maybe that is what one always feels? I think I would choose curiosity, even when laced with a bit of fear, to total confidence and stagnation. The world hasn’t ended, the cycle has just started again.

Happy 13th Baktun everyone…or 14th depending on who you ask.