throwback

Earlier this month, RENT closed on Broadway after running for twelve and a half years. The final performance was filmed for posterity, and this weekend, that performance is being shown in movie theatres across the nation. This is not the flawed movie version put out three years ago -- this is the Broadway staging, with audience, as written.

I highly recommend you log on to The Hot Ticket and see if it is playing anywhere near you -- Tallahassee has it showing at the AMC at the mall through Sunday.

RENT defined a lot of who I was in my formative young adult years. It spoke to the sensibilities most people have when they are high school/college age -- that Utopian ideal of grasping on to every moment, dedicating yourself to your passions at whatever cost. As you grow older, though, the routine of life sets in... you go through the motions because that's just what you do. And for most people, that's fine.

Ten months ago, I became not-most-people. I saw RENT for the first time since my diagnosis tonight. It was like meeting up with a close friend I hadn't seen in years, and picking up exactly where you left off, connecting in that beautiful, intensely personal way you'd been missing for ages.

I've lived under this burden for the last ten months and I've just kept myself safe by hiding away... sticking to the routine, going through the motions. But I remember now what I connected to when I was young -- the urgency of life. And suddenly, it's relevant to me again. I'm ready to move forward, to move on to the next chapter, but I don't know quite how to do that. I want to embrace each day as it comes... and though I'm healthy now, I know that won't always be the case. There will be days where this thing gets the better of me. Watching the show tonight with a different pair of glasses on reminded me that I need to live without fear, regardless of whether I'm here for another fifty years or fifty days.

So if you go and see it -- look beyond the character flaws, the motivations, and (what can seem to be) indictments of the paths these characters took -- and search for the underlying message. The one that hit home for so many when RENT crashed the party twelve and a half years ago -- and the one that knocked me out of a conscious sleep tonight. And when you do, you may well figure out a little piece of where I'm coming from... and where I'm going next.

And when I do figure out how to embrace each day and be satisfied with it... I'll do my best to let you in on that secret.