Today is Not a Dress Rehearsal for Your Life. This IS Your Life.
Life is not a dress rehearsal — Rose Tremain, CBE FRSL English novelist, short story writer, and former Chancellor of the University of East Anglia.
Anyone who has ever stepped onto a stage, whether as a tree in the annual kindergarten Christmas play, a ballet dancer or as a presenter understands the concept of dress rehearsal. Or, for that matter, the terrifying prospect of asking your boss for a raise. (Hint: Wear Depends.)
Here’s what the term means:
The dress rehearsal is a full-scale rehearsal where the actors and/or musicians perform every detail of the performance. For a theatrical performance, cast members wear their costumes.-Wikipedia
For years, I felt at some deep level that the situations I encountered, the people I met, the issues I faced were little more than practice. Some day my life would actually begin, and it would be absolutely nothing like my life as I knew it. If I just kept practicing hard, Real Life would appear.
Or I would walk through a portal into a different world, a la Clive Barker, and find myself in brand new circumstances.
It would be vastly better. So much so that my current life would pale by comparison. I wouldn’t make mistakes. Feel stupid. I’d get it right the first time…