Goodbye Love - Rent Entry #3

Seasons of Love came on at work, AGAIN. I went off into far off space for a second, imagining the cast lining up on the stage to sing it. I wish I were there. But I guess it's okay, and right, that I am not there. Or, perhaps, it doesn't matter. Rent isn't dying- it's just... closing. It's always going to be with me.

After I saw the Rent movie, I sobbed and sobbed. I went to bed and cried myself to sleep. I am in no way exaggerating. I am adopted, and when I was 11 I found out that my biological mother was HIV-positive, and a cocain addict at the time of my birth. I was young. I knew what HIV was, I actually believe myself to have an educated knwoledge about it. However, this didn't stop me from having negative thoughts about her. I wondered how she could have done this to me- "ruined" my life like that. I wondered what bad things she did to get HIV and blah blah blah.

After I saw Rent, the weight of everything I had ever said or ever thought came crashing down on me and I regretted it. How could I be so blind, or even judge someone I didn't know? When it comes right down to it, this women gave birth to me and there was always going to be some kind of connection there. And it's not like she just gave us up to pursue her own thing; it is documented that she tried to get clean to regain custody of my sister and I. I was ashamed of myself and worried for her. I wondered where she was- if she had died or how healthy she was....

This inspired me to learn more about HIV/AIDS. In my senior year in high school I decided to study AIDS education for my year-long project. I didn't get to carry it out as far as I would like but I had planned on starting my own education program. I was going to call it ANGEL: A New Generation Educating Life. That never really happened but I learned more than I could ever hope. I had to get my message out somehow. I ended up making a video, a sort of PSA about HIV and AIDS. Too many people think that it is a disease that happens to other people or in other countries. But here, in AMERICA, there are so many HIV-positive citiziens. Just because it's not an epidemic, like it was in the 80s, doesn't mean it's still not around. I was upset by the lack of knowledge that so many people seemed to have.

Rent's message of "no day but today" influenced me greatly as well. Live for the moment. Don't worry about what you did or what's going to happen. You have to appreciate what you have today. The friends I had, the life I lived.... Now when things get way to hectic I realize, I have to freaking slow down, look around, breathe. Tomorrow I could be gone and I don't want to wish I had done this or that.

Rent, you changed my life, and the lives of so many people. The show's closing, but the message is going to live on through the music, through the Rentheads, through community theatres and the movie. I promise never to let my Rent candle go out. Nothing could ever be enough but thank you- thank you Jonathan Larson.