I was 23 years old when I first saw the musical Rent. I was newly married, living in Columbia, SC, and had tickets to a production at Trustus Theatre. If you’ve ever been to Trustus, you know it’s small and intimate—the kind of theater where you can see the actors sweat, hear them breathe, and feel every ounce of energy coming off the stage. I had no idea what I was walking into, but for the next two hours, I was absolutely transfixed with the story: young people living in New York City, making art, falling in love, struggling to pay rent, losing friends, finding family, and generally making a beautiful mess of their lives. They were flawed, passionate, and wildly unapologetic, and I wanted what they had. Not the poverty or the heartbreak, obviously, but the freedom to be exactly who they were, even when the world told them they shouldn’t be. There was something about the rawness of it all that spoke directly to my soul. These characters weren’t trying to be palatable or carefully curating their lives to make other people comfortable. They loved who they loved, made mistakes, fought and forgave, and kept going.

I remember watching Angel, the fabulous drag queen with a heart as big as New York City, and feeling something I couldn’t quite articulate. It was a sense of recognition, as though this entire world was inviting me to live more boldly, more honestly, and more fully.

After the show, the actor who played Angel sought me out. He told me he’d been watching my reactions throughout the performance and loved seeing how deeply I was experiencing the show. Then he invited me to the cast party. Of course I went! What I remember most about the party, though, wasn’t the actual party itself, but instead was the feeling of being seen by someone who had just spent two hours embodying the very freedom I found so intoxicating.

Twenty years later, I watched Rent (the movie) in honor of its 30th anniversary, and the music still gets me every single time. At 43, though, I hear it differently than I did at 23. Back then, I was captivated by the possibility of a life lived without apology. Now, I understand how much courage that actually takes, especially when you’ve spent two decades building a career, raising children, paying bills, and becoming responsible for people and things. Somewhere along the way, you can become so good at managing your life that you forget to ask whether you’re actually living it.

There’s a difference between being responsible and being resigned, between making compromises and making yourself smaller, and between appreciating the life you’ve built and allowing yourself to want more from it.

This is why this musical still speaks to my soul after all these years. It doesn’t pretend that life is neat or fair, nor does it offer perfectly packaged characters who make all the right decisions. Instead, it gives us people who are deeply human and asks us to find beauty in all that messiness. At 23, I admired their fearlessness. At 43, I realize I’ve developed quite a bit of my own. I care less about what other people think, not because I care less about people, but because I’ve learned that their opinions don’t have to determine how I live. I’ve learned that I can disappoint people and survive it, that I can make mistakes and change my mind, and that being unapologetic doesn’t mean never owing someone an apology.

And for the next 20 years of my life? I’m not sure what comes next. What I do know is that I want passion, art that wrecks me, conversations that crack something open, love that is generous and brave, and experiences that remind me how extraordinary it is to be human. I don’t need a life without complications or one where every decision makes sense on paper, but I do know I want to live my life unabashedly alive.

The next 20 years could be pretty damn interesting. No day but today.

xoxo,

Lindsay