Renting Love

Last night was quite a turn out. Everyone did an amazing job and I find myself, with every rehearsal, enjoying myself that much more.

I was thinking last night as I lay in bed, not able to fall asleep at all...about the deeper meaning of this play. The characters, the story line...how this is real life...this is the way some people exist. This is (close to) how I have existed.

I moved out of my parents house when I was 18 with a guy Nathan. We were together for almost 5 years. Within that time (seems like a life time ago) we went through many stages of growing. I wouldn't trade it for the world.  We were young and dumb, and with the stunts we pulled we probably shouldn't be alive today for me to be typing this out. But we managed to survive. We walked down a road of drugs and parties and struggle. But over all we were loving life. We were care free and reckless and...it was something that I had to do.

Now, to clarify, he and I never had a "problem" with drugs...I am way to stubborn to let something like that get the best of me...and I sure wasn't going to let it happen to him...but I watched many of my friends fall to the drug's grasp and...try as I might, couldn't pull them back from it the icy grips of addiction. But, try as I might, they didn't want my help...and the only thing that I could do was be there when they hit rock bottom and try and pick up the pieces.

Like Roger, I've held my dearest friends, people I love, shake and shiver through withdrawal, I've watched them struggle with wanting just one more hit...to breaking down and getting that need to just make the pain stop. A friend of mine spent one year in Texas state jail for possession of Meth after he was in a very bad car accident that almost killed him. Thankfully, he survived, and that time in jail recovered him from the addiction and he stays away from it. I watched many of my friends not get so lucky...but eventually they recovered...at least the ones I still talk to. Some of them didn't and disappeared.

I never found a note...but I've gotten the phone call that my best friend shot himself in high school. I'll never forget that feeling as my friend gave me the news that morning. At that time, we didn't know if he'd lived. He did. He's doing wonderful now, both physically and mentally, raising a beautiful family. He was lucky that he survived. The only reason he did survive was because of the medication he was on...which ironically was the reason why he shot himself to begin with. Aaron's mother was a cop for many years...and being from Texas, was raised around gun. He knew how to use them...he knew which bullets went into what guns...but because he was on a mixture of two meds (paxil and something else) he was so out of it that he put the wrong bullet in the gun...so instead of blowing straight through the back of his skull, it lodged itself into the frontal lobe of his brain. This combo of medication has a history of causing suicide attempts....after this, they got a huge settlement from a lawsuit of many people who's loved ones either attempted and failed, or attempted and succeeded to kill themselves.

Anyway...I'll never forget that feeling of being told what happened...nor will I ever forget the feeling of having to pass on that news to the people we knew that had not found out yet. That is something that I never want to have to do again...news that I hope I never hear again...from anyone...about anyone I love. Unlike Roger, my loved on lived. But the trauma still exists within.

I know what it's like to be poor...I know what it's like to have to walk or ride a bike miles and miles to get to work. Michelle and I haven't had a car in two years. In Houston she rode her bike 14 miles a day to get to work and back. And when in the summer, the average temp is 105 in the shade with 100% humidity...it's a difficult trek. There's no such thing as humidity here. In south Texas you have to have gills in order to breath the air is so heavy with water at ALL TIMES of the year. Imagine the most humid day that you've ever experienced here...and multiply that by a million...you've got Texas at any given point of the year. And that's not an exaggeration in the least. When I got up here, it was hard for me to breathe because there wasn't any water in the air...

 Now that we're here she rides almost 20 miles to get to work and back when she can't find a ride. People take their cars for granted.

People take every thing for granted and rarely see just how lucky they are and most don't stop to think that there are people who don't have cars...that don't have food...that don't have a way to shower every day...I have been in each of the situations...at once.

As much as it sucked to go through, it gave me an appreciation to the things that I do have. As a kid, this is never something that I went through. My parents had/have money. Not rich by any means, but as a kid I never went without. Being an only child, I had every thing I wanted. I was spoiled, though, mind you, never a brat...but as adulthood crept up I had to go out on my own and find my own way.

There have been times when my dad has given me money when I needed it, but most times I find a way to get the money without asking for it.

I've been homeless...I've never slept in the street, but I've been a nomad traveling from couch to couch. Especially when Michelle and I first got together. I moved up here for about 4 months...then my mother wanted us to come back and help with a business she'd planned on starting...that didn't happen...two weeks after we moved back down there, she threw us out after an argument and she got physical with me...as she's done my whole life. She said to Michelle one day that because I'm her kid, "she has the right to beat the shit out of me whenever she feels like it."

Well, in this case she'd pinned me on the ground, kneeling on both my arms so I couldn't fight back, and with both fists was hitting me anywhere the blows would land. Michelle, from no where, tackles her into the stove and held her there with her forearm. Not liking the fact that Michelle had done this, kicked us out to the streets.

We found our way, but it makes me think of Mimi and how we discussed why she was in the situation she was...running away from an abusive home...finding a way to survive..."it's a living..."

With the exception of my parents and a couple cousins and my grandmother on my father's side and a few people on my mom's side of the family, everyone's attitude changed towards me when I entered a homosexual relationship. I've alway preferred women over men and I think my time with Nathan was necessary for me to discover what I was really looking for in the person I was with. I love Nathan, he and I are still very close, though I discovered after 4 years and 8 months with him that he wasn't the one for me...and 2 of my aunts...whom I used to be close with...now look down on me because of my life choices. It got to the point where my father stepped in and told everyone to shut the hell up about it. It was my life, my choice, and they can get over or stop speaking to me.

They still speak to me, on occasion, but there's always that under tone. We stopped going over to my aunt's house for holidays because, though we would be there, it was like we didn't exist...unless we "did something" that they didn't approve of...like...sitting less than half a foot away from each other...and out of respect for their house hold, we never did anything more than hug...which was still too much for them...and when they did speak to us...it's hard to explain if it's never happened to you, but to use the word condescending is understating it...we are lower than the dog shit on their shoes because, as my aunt Kendra told me, "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve..." *rolls eyes*

I even deleted one of my aunts off my Facebook because she wouldn't shut her mouth about my life style and I got tired of hearing about it. I'm almost 28 years old...I'm not a little kid...I'll do what I want and live how I want in any way that makes me happy. What they don't understand is I'm not here to please them...and blood or not...I don't feel like they're my family anymore. Which is sad for me because they were really close to me at one time. What they don't see is that the only thing about me that has changed since being with Michelle...is that I'm happy. If they'd see past the gender of the person I'm with, they'd see how well she takes care of me. How much she's there for me and how much I've turned around in the 5 years I've been with her.

And I think that...in some part of the background of Angel and Collins and Joanne and Maureen...that's happened as well...as it happens to so many people who are gay. The line "let those among us without sin be the first to condemn" hits close to home for me, as I'm sure it does with other members of the cast...because that line is so powerful. It speaks on so many levels. Especially gay people....the looks Michelle and I get from strangers...from people that are supposed to love us...the things people say to us...the only thing I can do from letting it get to me sometimes is laugh at them. If people are staring at us...I grab Michelle and plant a big kiss on her...they want something to stare at...I give it to them. And the reactions we get...we have to laugh because...well...what else can we do?

We aren't going to let someone's bigotry get in the way of our happiness. And giving them a show...well...it's better than feeling like less of a person because the person I love happens to be the same gender.

As this show shows us...love has no eyes to see color...it has no eyes to see gender...true love truly is blind and only knows the soul. The body is a shell for the soul and you shouldn't turn away from that soul that calls to you because of something as mundane as the shell it resides in. So many people pass up real love because of something as obsolete as religion. I'm not trying to talk down about religious people...believe what you believe if it helps you sleep at night with ease...but don't let love slip by because of it. Love is hard to find in this world and unconditional love is that much more rare.

Love. Hope. Two words that are over used to the point they've lost meaning...but when you have it...you have it...and don't let anything or anyone come between that. And I think that this message is also implemented within Rent. Because in reality...we're all dying. From the day we're born we're dying...and like Marty said last night...once you're gone...it's about who you loved, how you loved, and the impact you had on them and the impact they had on you.

Gender is not important. What other people think is not important. What makes you happy is important. What makes you smile is important and...when you're on that death bed...it's important that...at least to me...that I will look back and KNOW that I have no regrets.

This show has taught me so much in just the few weeks we've been rehearsing, and I have no doubt that it has much more to teach me in the future.

Sorry it's so long...words got away from me. :D <3

Believe in Love. Measure your life in Love.