I see from Jennifer's comment that homestretch is one word. But more importantly, I had thought it was a baseball metaphor, but I see from Jenny's definitions that no, it is not from baseball, but from horse racing. The homestretch, I guess is the last lap. Glad I found this out now, because I was thinking baseball should be in the play somehow to anchor the metaphor of the title. Now no need for baseball. Horse racing? I don't think I can get that in.
I also realized that I used that phrase in the first play I ever wrote, twenty-five years ago. In "So Long on Lonely Street" Ruth says to her brother, Raymond, "We're on the homestretch, brother. The homestretch to where?" Later Raymond says to Ruth, when he is trying to convince her that the two of them should move back to their old family home to live there together with their elderly aunt, he says, "Mortality is not a singularly southern condition, Sister. We all feel life slipping through our fingers day by day, and want it to mean more than it does. We can do this. We'll live here together. You and me and Annabel Lee. This is where the homestretch starts, Ruth. Right here at Honeysuckle Hill."
The Homestretch, it's really about the last part of something. The final lap. Your last chance. My last chance. To do whatever it is you really want to do. Have your life. On your terms. This is what Angel and George, the couple in the play, are looking at. I'm looking at it too.
although the couple of dictionary resources I have checked online show it only as one word, you will notice that "homestretch" shows up frequently online as 2 words, even in printed sources. So I think you could safely have it either way it you had a preference. I think of it in association with baseball as well. I think it is just a term they use a lot in baseball, but it does indeed come from racing.
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