The Final Act

This is it! Very soon I will play the third act. It's time for everything that has gone on before to come together. If the play that is my life isn’t wrapped up in this, the final act, there will be no grand finale, no applause – only the curtain falling, the lights dimming and the silence of an empty theatre.

On August 1, 2008 the curtain will rise for the final act.

At the beginning of the first act I was a child, a dreamer. I wanted to explore the world. I wanted to work as a teacher to the Inuit, distribute food to the starving people of India, write the great Canadian novel, and work for the New York Times. My opportunities were limitless. By the end of the first act I felt I was living a life that was not my own. Crushed in the vice of over demanding parents who did not understand me, I ran away from home.

When the curtain rose on the second act I was destitute and alone. I struggled to make a life. It was a conventional life and self doubt and depression hid in the corners of my mind, hidden by a false self-confidence that got me through the day. I was still living a life that wasn’t my own. At the end of the second act I’d had it. I needed a life that was on track I realized that I now had the money and the ability to do what I wanted to do in my first act.

When the curtain rises on August 1 I begin my journey by trekking the mountains of my childhood home. I’ll move on to explore the pueblos of New Mexico. I’ll hike Mexico’s Copper Canyon. I’ll teach in Mexico. I’ll visit Italy’s Tuscany and learn Italian. I will live my life.

When the final curtain descends and the lights are dimming I will know that in the end I have lived a good life.