RENT - Hard Lessons Learned (corrections edited)

Over Thanksgiving break, I went to see the movie RENT with my sister, Katie. RENT was my first Broadway musical. I saw the touring production in Greensboro back in 1998. After which, I went out and bought the soundtrack and I have listened in incessantly through the years. I really love this musical! (And a man can loves musicals and be quite comfortable in his heterosexuality.)

I enjoy the themes of how precious live and love are, even though there are all these issues involved. Half the cast has AIDS, a number of them either have used or use drugs, they’re struggling with money and most of them are creative artist types. I love and try to live the message of the play, “No Day But Today.” It’s not so much a mantra to party like there’s no tomorrow, but a challenge to live each day as fully as possible because tomorrow may never come. It means to create, to love, to laugh, to cry, to carpe diem. It means not to disconnect and numb yourself to the pain because at the same time you numb yourself to the good of life. The afternoon rainbows only come after the morning rain.

Another reason I think I like this play so much is that I really identify with the character Roger, “the pretty boy front man who wasted opportunity.” It goes beyond just the fact that Roger plays guitar and I play guitar. It has to because he plays a Fender guitar and I hate Fenders. Actually, I think I identify with his character because like Roger I put walls up around my heart after enduring some of the pains of life. Is this the proper way to cope with life? Of course not, but it was the defense mechanism I chose.

Funny that I ask it that way, “cope with life”, because the character Angel invites Roger, Tom and Mark to join him/her at a support group, Life Support, that helps people cope with life. In truth it’s an AIDS support group, but the issues of facing death are really about coping with life. I felt that way when I went to Alateen meetings. The meetings were more than just learning how to deal with an alcoholic family member and our own ACOA issues, it was about learning strategies and techniques to healthfully deal with life.

And like Roger there’s been a “Mimi” in my life. Our relationship has been one of coming together and pushing each other away, just like the characters of the movie. No, we have never been lovers for, like Mimi and Roger, we have put up walls to each other. It’s rather funny; we had an argument once where we both said to each other that we felt that the other kept us at a distance. However, this post isn’t going about "Mimi" and "Roger" though because real life rarely ends up like Hollywood or Broadway. Not every Mimi hears Angel’s voice in time and not ever Roger gets over his pride to give Mimi his song. But I digress.

This post is more about how Roger and I are alike and how I had built walls around my heart, or rather locked a good number of doors to rooms in my heart-home. (I like that metaphor better.) I use the locked rooms metaphor because I did let my ex-girlfriend in my heart. However, there were rooms I didn’t let her into and I’m sure she felt that. So from her standpoint there probably wasn't much difference between a door and a wall.

How often did "Mimi", and my ex-girlfriend, “sing” to me "Take Me Out Tonight” and I responded with "Another Day”? (If you are not familiar with the songs, go read the lyrics.) Not saying that Mimi, in the movie, didn’t have her issues, but Roger had his well. And had he not been so caustic to Mimi, and thrown her out of his apartment, they might have been able to work through their respective issues together rather than apart. I think that’s the biggest irony of their relationship. Had either let the other one in they would have discovered a love that would have helped them heal. Not that either’s love would save the other (As a “my love can save you, Mimi” attitude.), but in the act of loving someone who truly loved them as who they are their own love would have been reflected back upon them.








(Photo from PostSecret)



So as I was trying to break down the walls around “Mimi’s” heart, and my ex-girlfriend’s, (and really anyone else in life. That’s part of my mission this lifetime; to help others live more fully, to remind them of Who They Really Are.) they were trying to break down my walls. You should have heard some of the fights that we’ve gotten into. For years I had been saying what that postcard says to “Mimi”. Had I listened properly I would have heard that she was actually saying that to me. I guess that maxim is true, “You teach what you need to learn.”

I feel like that is the biggest lesson I have learned this year. Much of this year was a returning to who I used to be or rather, who I really am but forgot. But this was a lesson finally learned after years of resistance on my part. With the letter I sent to my friend sharing my darkest secret and then telling “Mimi” why I had never let her upstairs in my heart-home and how one does that, I’ve basically taking down all the major walls I had put up to block the pain of life. Took me 29 ¾ years to realize that I was also blocking the good stuff of life as well.

And what was the basis of those walls? Fear. It’s there that the message of RENT rings so true.

“There’s Only Now
There’s Only Here
Give In To Love
Or Live In Fear
No Other Path
No Other Way

No Day But Today!!

The character that best exemplifies this ethos is Angel. Angel has AIDS and even in the face of death he lives life to it's fullest. He loves to his fullest. He gives of himself because he knows that is the only way to truly receive love, to receive life. It is because of how he lived his life that even his death inspires those he touched. In that way he is much like Jesus, the Christ. Jesus called those around him to live their lives to their highest, to love more fully, and therefore be healed and become more human (at the same time remembering their divinity). Such was Jesus's power that even after death his life continued to inspire others. The character Angel was like that. I daresay Jesus would have sang "No Day But Today!" along Angel.

So there has been nothing overly dramatic about coming to this point in my life. There have been no fireworks, no trumpets playing. Just a good warm fuzzy feeling inside. Sort of an enlightenment moment. What do I need to be afraid of that I need to keep those walls up? Nothing really. Sure I will still get burned by love and life, but I will also feel it’s benefits and blessings.

"For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart." –From "The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran.

I was talking with my sister, Katie, over Thanksgiving break about all this. And she said that admired me being so open like this and that she wished she could do that with some of the walls in her heart. (She and I put up some of the same walls because of some similar shared pains.) I told Katie, “You’re only 25. I wasn’t ready to take down the walls when I was that age. It’s taken close to 30 years to get to where I am and it wasn't easy or painless. And the process of growing never stops.”

So where do Roger and I go from here? Who knows? That 's the beauty of existing in real life an not in a movie. The script is never finished and fully written. Having learned to take down my walls doesn't mean that I'll let everyone into every room in my heart-home. (There's still a thing called healthy boundaries.) But it does mean, I won't be afraid when they time comes again for that. "No Day But Today!"

Thank you Jonathan Larson!