RENT!

Oh my gods and goddesses alike, there are no words. But since I am both verbose and waxing poetic, I’m going to anyway. No day but today, right? Wow, cheesy. Anyway…

It’s been a LONG time since I’ve seen live theater, so my expectations were honestly non-existent. I walked in only knowing the music by heart and the story through and trough, but not really knowing what my eyes were going to be seeing. Dizzy. Dazzling. And my ears were trying to overlay the music I knew to the show before me. Dreams lie so hard. What was before me was more than music and light and movement and message. It was soul. Pure, unadulterated soul. It still takes my breath away to think about it.

One room became a city populated by more people than I really want to think about. And within it, a family. A series of people connected, by choice and by chance, but connected none the less. It reminded me of something I’d set aside. Not forgotten necessarily, but definite put aside or buried or whatever. The whatever is the problem, but I’ll get to that.

Family. Friends. How they become intertwined. Intermingled, essential to one another. A family of choice becomes extended, fractured, sprained/strained, healed but by the grace of Will with a capital, “Look, man, I love you even when you’re a cunt. I love you even THOUGH you’re a cunt.”

Yet sometimes, the cancer must be cut away, for chemo hurts as much as it heals, which SUCKS….

But in the end, it is said, ‘you can’t choose your family.’ Fuck that. I got mine: George, Theo, Shivian, Frank, John, MeganRose, Tessa, Lisa, Kir, Treesha, Katie, Julie, Sherrie, Sarah, Lois, Karen, Chris, Taylor, Thistle, Chaldean, Little Buddaha, Emily, Preston … I could go on without even leaving Chicagoland. Love cannot be tamed, cannot be denied. And gods (pick one, hell pick several) damn it, I’m not trying anymore.

It took the end to show me why the beginning began. It’s not as it once was and truly never could be again, but it is not quite as fractured as I had once thought. Sprained, strained, but healable. Given time. Patience is not my best virtue, I recognize that, but at least I know it can heal even these wounds, if I back the fuck off and let it happen. I will not say the “O” word, but whatever. A healthy shift in view, slapped in the face of yours truly once again, in time for spring. If it ever stops FUCKING SNOWING….