It was five years ago today that the man and I came back to Colorado to see Peter Gabriel perform at Red Rocks Amphitheater with his New Blood Orchestra. It was a big deal for me then, and it still feels like one of those special moments in my life that I wouldn't trade for the world. As darkness fell over the venue that night, and the lights of Denver began to sparkle in the distance, we all saw that a different sort of light was building. Lightning flashed with increasing frequency, and we knew we were going to get wet. At the time, I thought it was so hilarious and fitting that the rain finally let loose right as he performed the lyrics "Apres moi, le deluge," taking the phrase very literally. After me comes the flood. It wasn't until later that I really thought about what it meant metaphorically, and in a historical context. It was never meant to be simplistic, to refer to mere water. It's credited alternately to King Louis XV and to Madame de Pompadour, regarding the looming French Revolution. It can mean either "once I'm gone, all hell will break loose," or "damn the consequences, I don't care what happens after me because I'll be gone." Either way, it's on my mind tonight.
I've made no secret that I'm terrified of the future. One of my constant companions throughout my life, possibly as a corollary of or effect of the lupus, has been an outsized sense of anxiety. I always played things out in my mind three or four steps down all the possible outcomes of any action, any situation. I've been accused of jumping to worst-case-scenario conclusions on hundreds of occasions, and in many of those instances the accusations were warranted. Not always. To say that my anxiety is at a fever pitch now is a massive understatement. I hate not knowing what is going to come after. I'm terrified of the changes I know are bearing down on me. I've become increasingly inflexible as I've aged, and I've come to view dramatic change as an enemy. What is coming in under two weeks is no less frightening to me than the French Revolution was to Mme de Pompadour's crowd. I see chaos and grief ahead, and no clue when peace and happiness will return.
I have more I want to say, but not everything churning in me is my story to tell. I pushed today until I heard things I needed to hear, that I wish had been so baldly presented to me a decade or more ago. Now I need to go process it and find a way to come to peace with the fact that it's all too late to change. I lived decades without enough deference to the consequences of my actions, and I'm paying for that now. The flood is coming.
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